D.K. Metcalf (14) celebrates his touchdown reception with five seconds left, which won Ole Miss the game against Kentucky.
LEXINGTON, Ky. —In lieu of the traditional college football Sunday day-after story, The Clarion-Ledger will instead this season offer an “exit survey” following each Ole Miss game. Below, beat writer Antonio Morales and sports editor Hugh Kellenberger relive the Rebels’ 37-34 win against Kentucky.
What is your Tweet-length review of this game?
Antonio Morales: Kentucky hasn’t been able to put teams away all season. Ole Miss created an opening for itself and took advantage of it.
Hugh Kellenberger: Ole Miss, now 2-0 against the SEC East this season, would maybe be the third-best team in the East.
What was the most memorable sequence of events?
AM: Jordan Ta’amu, in his second career start, calmly led Ole Miss down the field on the game-winning 71-yard drive. The Rebels had only one timeout but it didn’t matter. Ta’amu made good decisions and executed well, unlike last week, which is why Ole Miss won.
HK: It’s the game-winning drive, obviously. Such was the nature of this game — and about 75 percent of all contests involving Ole Miss, it seems — that in a one-score situation the team who has the ball last is probably going to win. It’s a statement of the quality of the Ole Miss offense, and a referendum on the defense. A week ago, the team lost to Arkansas in this fashion. But when Kentucky gave Ole Miss back the ball with two minutes and change left, it felt like the Rebels’ destiny to get the SEC road win.
Ole Miss Rebels quarterback Jordan Ta’amu (10) runs the ball against the Kentucky Wildcats in the second half at Commonwealth Stadium. Ole Miss defeated Kentucky 37-34.
In December, what about this game will we still be talking about?
AM: How after the loss of Shea Patterson to a torn PCL, Ole Miss remained in good hands with Ta’amu at quarterback. Also, how the Rebels return two solid quarterbacks next season.
HK: If Ta’amu’s play does keeps up like this, you do wonder how it ends up playing out. There’s a lot of variables at play here, most notably NCAA sanctions, who the new coach ends up being and what the offense looks like, but how often do two quality QBs end up staying at the same place? There’s a lot of QB-needy FBS teams out there, too.
Yeah, so about Matt Luke’s ability to keep this team motivated …
AM: It’s been the most impressive part of Luke’s run as interim coach. Remember, last season Ole Miss had to win one of its final two games to reach a bowl. Instead, it rolled over and lost both games in embarrassing fashion.
Most of the players from last season are back, but they haven’t quit despite the fact they knew they weren’t going to a bowl nearly nine months ago and lost the coach they committed to in July.
But Luke still has them playing hard deep into the season, which was a question coming into the fall.
Ole Miss Rebels head coach Matt Luke reacts during the game against the Kentucky Wildcats in the first haff at Commonwealth Stadium.
HK: Matt Luke should be a head coach somewhere next season. I see no chance it’ll be at Ole Miss, but I think he has earned the opportunity to get his own program (probably at the Group of 5 level) and build it up with his style of play, coaches and players.
You bring up the bowl ban and losing Hugh Freeze, but this team also got run by Alabama and Auburn earlier this year. That could have been a breaking moment. Or when it lost to Arkansas last week like it did. It keeps coming back. That’s a testament to Luke.
Did you see D.K. Metcalf?
AM: I’ve written a lot about Ta’amu in the past day, but not as much about Metcalf, who made the difficult catch on the game-winning touchdown. So I’ll dedicate this space to him.
Metcalf went through four games recently where he caught no more than four passes in a contest and didn’t top 46 yards. He broke out of that stretch with a four-catch, 107-yard performance against Arkansas.
He followed that with a five-reception, 83-yard day against Kentucky, which featured the game-winning touchdown grab and a game-tying touchdown earlier.
The game-winner just displayed what Metcalf is best at, high pointing the ball in the red zone.
HK: The endzone fade is a remarkably inefficient pass route, to the point where it probably should be abandoned in most playbooks. But the exception to that is when you have a player like Metcalf — big, strong and terrific at winning that one-on-one matchup in tight space.
It’s interesting to watch how Ole Miss uses its wide receivers, because how many schools would target Metcalf 10-plus times a game every week? Yet Ole Miss does not, because it has A.J. Brown and DaMarkus Lodge and Van Jefferson and even tight end Dawson Knox. The first four are all between 33-48 catches this season, Knox has 17 catches in seven games and even running back Jordan Wilkins has 23.
To me, it looks like offensive coordinator Phil Longo is playing receivers off of each other — Lodge and Metcalf get a lot of the single-wide outside receiver matchups, forcing coverage decisions that benefit them or tell the QB to feed the ball to Brown or Jefferson.
Ole Miss Rebels running back Jordan Wilkins (22) runs the ball against the Kentucky Wildcats in the second half at Commonwealth Stadium. Ole Miss defeated Kentucky 37-34.
OK, so what about next Saturday?
AM: Ole Miss will be expected to win comfortably over Louisiana-Lafayette, which is 4-4 after its win over South Alabama. The Ragin’ Cajuns gave up 48 points to Southeastern Louisiana, 56 to Louisiana Monroe and 47 to Arkansas State among others.
So chances are the Rebels won’t have much trouble scoring next week.
HK: No, I wouldn’t say so.
Mark Hudspeth, by the way, is a very good example of the value of jumping to another school at first opportunity. He had some success at ULL early, but he was taking chances on talent — the Mississippi whisperer was making Lafayette the home for all wayward football-playing souls like Tig Barksdale for a while there — and that’s hard to sustain. He’s won three of four to get to .500, but this is a school that is trying to rebrand itself as Louisiana in an effort to put itself on a similar footing to LSU. How do you think giving up 48 and 56 to a couple of Louisiana directional schools you thought you were better than is playing with the home crowd?
What defines a successful season for Ole Miss?
AM: Is it six wins? I think the Rebels have a realistic shot at that total. They should beat ULL next week and I think they’ll be competitive against Texas A&M, which looks worse by the week.
I think if Ole Miss wins six games with an interim coach who took over two weeks before training camp started, it would qualify as a success.
HK: A 6-6 season would have been a graded on a curve success with Freeze coaching and the team able to go to a bowl game, given how last year ended and some very real talent deficiencies on the roster. Now it would be an unqualified achievement, and see my earlier comments on Luke.
Even if Ole Miss only ends up winning one more game, I think you can be pleased with how things played out — if nothing else, the new coach knows he has some fighters in that locker room. And fans can appreciate the effort shown. But so much of this stuff is Egg Bowl-related — how do you feel going into the offseason if Ole Miss wins the next two and then loses by four touchdowns to Mississippi State? It would still sting, and be a terrible lingering feeling going into the offseason.
