Ole Miss followed up a trouncing of Vanderbilt with a shootout win over South Carolina, capturing consecutive SEC wins for the first time since 2015. The Rebels notched their 17-point victory over the Gamecocks on Saturday, Nov. 14.
With a 3-4 record, Kiffin and the Rebels are now looking to put themselves in a position to be bowl eligible.
Similar to the Vanderbilt game, quarterback Matt Corral and wide receiver Elijah Moore put up historic numbers against South Carolina.Corral threw for 513 yards, a single-game school record topping Shea Patterson’s 489-yard performance in 2017 against UT Martin, while Moore surpassed 1,000 receiving yards this season and caught two touchdowns.
One of the most notable plays on Saturday was the 91-yard pass to Moore for a touchdown. Miscommunication in the Gamecock secondary led to Moore being wide open and headed straight for the endzone.
The Rebels have been finding creative ways to get the ball to Moore this season, using him occasionally at the running back position.
“He’s just really natural,” Kiffin said in the post-game press conference. “We just wanted to make sure we got him the ball, and (I) was worried that one would be on him the whole day and that they would play man the whole day, so we wanted to confuse them with him in the backfield. It’s hard to align, pretty cool for the kid to go back there and average seven yards per carry.”
Moore also added his take on him playing running back, relating back to his times in little league.
“I kind of did (play running back) in high school a little bit,” Moore said. “But when I was in little league, I used to play running back, so it kind of made me go back in time and think of that.”
Defensively, the Rebels struggled to stop the run, allowing 318yard rushing and 5 rushing touchdowns. In addition to the allowed touchdowns, the defensive allowed 8.2 yards per carry, which resulted in a plethora of South Carolina rushing first downs.
Linebacker Lakia Henry carried the defense with 10 tackles while A.J. Finley caught his third interception in two games.
The Rebels put up 708 yards offensively and are continuing to shatter records game by game.
“I want to be positive because we won the game and made some plays at the end, but at halftime, it wasn’t a real good locker room,” Kiffin said. “We weren’t playing very good at all, but luckily, we made some plays at the end and had a historic day offensively.”
