Bounce back.
After its miracle start to the football season hit a downturn Saturday night, Ole Miss football coach Hugh Freeze and the Rebels are trying to bounce back, while realizing many of the team’s lofty goals are still within reach.
Ole Miss saw its season-opening four-game win streak snapped with a 38-10 loss at unbeaten Florida. In the latest Associated Press rankings, Ole Miss slipped from third to No. 14.
Now, Ole Miss returns home for a non-conference Homecoming matchup with New Mexico State.
Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford. The game will be shown nationally on the SEC Network.
“Obviously, it was a disappointing night down in Florida,” Freeze said. “Credit to Florida, they are a much improved football team. They are very good defensively and they made explosive plays on us. We certainly did not play our best. Some of that had to do with them, some of that had to do with us not making plays or not coaching them to play well enough. It is a great lesson for us. We owned it when we went to Tuscaloosa and won, so now we need to own the loss on the road.
“We have to own it when we lose in difficult places to play against really good teams. The expectations of this program are to compete in those games. I know that and I understand that. So, like many other teams, we need to get in here and get to work.”
Ole Miss is 2-1 in Southeastern Conference play. The Rebels took advantage of five Crimson Tide turnovers in a 43-37 win over Alabama. After returning home to defeat Vanderbilt, Ole Miss went back on the road and did not respond against a ferocious Florida defense with one of the best lines in the league.
“We did okay at Alabama,” Freeze said. “This was a different defensive front that gives us a bit more of a challenge. They’re a lot like our guys. They’re extremely quick. The environment gave them a distinctive advantage with the get off that they had. It was very difficult. We had some guys out. Justin Bell, of course, he’s a senior. Javon (Patterson) was real gimpy. We struggled in that environment with their quickness. Not sure how well we did at Alabama, but it was for sure better. The biggest difference that I would take away was we were able early on in Alabama to have a little success.
“What we needed to go on the other night was for us to go back and forth a little bit to settle that place down. If you look at the first drive, one of our guys gets the wrong signal, and we have a sprint out pass to get Chad away from it, and we take a sack because our guy goes the wrong direction. The next one, we had a fumble on an exchange. That is the first time I remember that happening since I’ve been here. The next drive, we get two first downs and we snap the ball over the quarterback’s head. That kind of fed the frenzy.”
Despite the loss, Ole Miss knows in remains very much alive in the race for the Southeastern Conference Western Division chance. With rivals LSU and Mississippi State still on the schedule, Ole Miss also remains alive in the race for berth n the College Football Playoff. However, the team will have to take another gigantic step to play well enough down the stretch to reach that level.
“We are not elite right now,” Freeze said. “We have potential to be much better than the way we played that night, and we’ve shown that. We still have a lot of work to do. It’s evident the other night that we weren’t prepared to play our best and didn’t. We got exposed in some places in the secondary that we need to work on. Maybe we’ll move some people around. Offensively, we have got to find a way to get where you are on the road, and to play in that type of environment in this league, you have to find a way to have success early.
“You have to put an extreme amount of time into doing that. I believe that this team will respond, no question. We have the ability to be one of the best teams in the country. I can’t control injuries. There’s no telling what will happen with those. So you have to continue to build your program to where you can be elite when those things happen. But I am confident. I can’t wait to get to work and back on the practice field to get ready for Saturday.”
A member of the Sun Belt Conference, New Mexico State enters the game winless with four defeats. Freeze hopes to get some younger playing time and get some of the injured veterans more time to recover.
Ole Miss will return to the road to face undefeated Memphis at 11 a.m. next Saturday (WTVA-ABC) in the Liberty Bowl.
“Well, you have an enormous amount of things that kids have to experience on both sides,” Freeze said. “Both can be your adversary and being adverse to success and how you handle disappointments. I really thought after the Alabama game we had a good mind set. We weren’t too excited. But we certainly haven’t played the last two weeks with the same drive and passion to be an elite team that I think we have the ability to be. Of course, in this world, when you have a disappointing loss, the burden and negativity that comes toward not only me, but the coaches and the players, I understand that. And you hate to see that for your players, but you can’t run from that.
“It’s part of the world you live in. Hopefully the leadership of our team can handle that, and we need to circle the wagons, own what we did, own what we didn’t do, and we still have a lot to play for and a long season left. We can’t operate like the rest of the world and put our hands in the air. We have to get back to work. We didn’t make a sale this week. We didn’t produce. So we need to get back to work and get back to producing.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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