The Ole Miss football team’s matchup with the newly top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide turned into a blowout, as expected, but there’s no denying that there was something different about this loss.
Every football coach in America will tell you over and over that there’s no such thing as a moral victory. A win is a win and a loss is a loss, but taking a look back at Saturday, Rebel fans can be as happy as one could possibly be about a 59-31 loss.
The Rebels walked into Bryant-Denny Stadium with true freshman quarterback John Rhys Plumlee behind the steering wheel and led 10-7 after one quarter, giving the Tide their first deficit of the season. Of course that did not last long, as the Rebels were outscored 31-0 in the second quarter, virtually ending the game before halftime.
“We came here to win. No excuses,” Luke said after the game. “The thing we’ve got to do is just build on some of the positives of some of the guys out there competing, some of the young guys making plays. There’s a lot of things that we need to get corrected.”
The numbers on the scoreboard might have been discouraging for the Rebels in the moment, but it ultimately did little to mask the optimism stemming from the performance of the young core. Every Rebel touchdown on Saturday was scored by a true freshman.
Plumlee led the Rebels in passing and rushing yards with 141 yards and two touchdowns through the air and 109 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
“I was probably most impressed in talking to him after each series with what he was seeing,” offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez said. “His eyes were in the right spot. He knew what was going on. For first time starting that was pretty good. We just left a lot of plays out there.”
Jerrion Ealy and Snoop Conner combined for 130 yards rushing and Jonathan Mingo had 74 yards and a receiving touchdown. The Ole Miss coaching staff used the Alabama game to see what they had in the freshman class and had to like most of what they saw.
Their performances were encouraging for the future, but unfortunately Matt Luke can’t time travel two years from now.
“There are too many seniors in that room to say we’re just going to build,” Luke said. “We’ve got a fan base that wants to win so that’s what we’re going to go try to do. We’ll try to go put our guys in the best position to go win and these freshman will continue to get better.”
The Rebel secondary’s struggles continued as Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith broke out with 274 yards and five touchdowns, most of that coming in the first half. Matt Corral’s injury status is still unclear. While it might be exciting to have a new life to the team even in defeat, the Rebels have some improving to do with a big matchup against Vanderbilt up next to start a month of SEC play.
