The opponent was meaningless. The Ole Miss football team simply needed a win.
After losing three-straight games, Ole Miss finally could feel good at the start of a new work week began thanks to a 37-27 victory against Georgia Southern on Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. While the Rebels, struggled to put away the Sun Belt Conference-member Eagles, the victory was crucial, even if it came at a cost.
Ole Miss will look to enhance its postseason resume at 6:30 p.m. Saturday (SEC Network) when it returns to Southeastern Conference play against No. 10 Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. Ole Miss needs to win two of its final three games to return to the postseason for a fifth-straight year.
“It was a tough one in a lot of ways,” Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said. “Give credit to Georgia Southern. We spent a lot of time working on a lot of their option game and didn’t see an enormous amount of it and we had to make some adjustments, so give them credit for having a good game plan. Once our offense got rolling I thought we took control of the game and were able to put it away even after Chad (Kelly) went out.
“Offensively, we have certain key performance indicators we set and we were able to accomplish. Of the seven we have we were able to accomplish five of those, not counting the last red-zone scoring opportunity, where we took the knee. I gave the guys a break on that one. Taking the knee there I thought we were good in the red zone, which we worked extremely hard on. We took care of the ball, except for that one pick that their DB made on an opportunity A.J. (Brown) had to make a catch.”
Still, the biggest takeaway was the loss of Kelly, A two-year starter at quarterback, Kelly suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the victory and will miss the remainder of the season. He finishes his Ole Miss career as the conference’s top passer with a career average of 309.1 yards per game.
Senior defensive end John Youngblood also suffered a season-ending ankle injury.
“It is very disappointing to see seniors in their career like that,” Freeze said. “You hate to see any junior, sophomore, freshman, but at least they have an opportunity to come back and finish their course differently. Unfortunately, these two will now and that’s heart breaking in a lot of ways, and we are indebted to them to their service to this university and to our program. John has been a rock ever since he has been here, a leader, a captain, a Chucky Mullins award winner, really could ask for nothing more from him. Chad (Kelly) came here wanting to re-write his story, and I have witnessed him to that to a large extent. It is not the ending we wanted. It’s not the last chapter we wanted to write, but life has a way of doing that.
“I have been with him daily and he’s changed for the better. We all still have challenges in life. We all still have those things that haunt us and the shortcomings we all have, but I have watched him do things and make impacts on people and the way he played the game here.
“They both played the game here like they had a debt to pay to this university that gave them a scholarship, and that’s kind of refreshing. It is not the norm in today’s society that people view it that way.”
Ole Miss will give redshirt freshman Jason Pellerin his first start at quarterback against Texas A&M. Freeze and his staff must also decide if they want to remove the redshirt from coveted signee Shea Patterson.
“That’s a very difficult thing to do this time in the year with three games left,” Freeze said. “All options are on the table sitting here Monday morning. We have looked at Markell (Pack), who has played quarterback, Evan Engram can throw, and Kentucky played a whole game with a running back at quarterback. Hopefully Jason (Pellerin) will stay healthy. I would rule nothing out at this point. I am just trying to figure out what is best for individuals and for the team.”
Freeze knows the challenges his team will face against Texas A&M and Vanderbilt on the road and against Mississippi State at home. Fortunately, the Rebels will carry momentum into that stretch run.
“We were good on third down, need to be a little better, but we were good,” Freeze said. “Had very few penalties and we had explosive plays again defensively, just too many explosive runs again in the first half. We definitely need to build upon the second half. It was our best half of the year. There were some really good plays, with the exception of the two penalties that gave them first downs. I thought that our defense played the best they had all year.”
“Outstanding effort by Fadol Brown. I thought 14 tackles, I think that’s the most a defensive lineman has had during our tenure here. (He) just played really outstanding football for us and played with tremendous effort, as did a lot of our kids in the second half, so that was really good to see. We’ve still got to create more turnovers, but really limit the explosive plays, particularly in the run game. One was totally on our staff, we had a bad call when the ball was in the middle of the field that caused a 68-yard touchdown run.”
n In related news, the SEC Network will televise the Ole Miss-Vanderbilt game at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Alabama-Chattanooga game at 6 p.m. Nov. 19 will air on ESPN2 or ESPNU, the Southeastern Conference office announced Monday afternoon.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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