Postgame Notes

Aug. 30, 2003

Recap?|? Box Score?|? Quotes

OLE MISS POSTGAME NOTES

NOTING ELI
22-of-33 passing, 275 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT

Manning's 8-yard completion to Mike Espy in the third quarter was the 567th of his career to break Kent Austin's school career record ... Manning now holds 26 Ole Miss single-season, season or career records.
With a 23-yard TD pass to Mike Espy in the fourth quarter, Manning has now thrown at least one TD pass in 22 of his 25 career starts.
The 23-yard TD pass marked Manning's 55th career TD responsible for, putting him one shy of tying the Ole Miss career record held by his father, Archie Manning (1968-1970) at 56.

SERIES NOTES

Today's meeting was the 78th all-time dating back to 1894.
Ole Miss leads the series 44-32-2, and the Rebels are now 20-24-2 in Nashville against the Commodores.
The Rebels have won four straight in the series and 10 of the last 11 meetings since 1992.
Ole Miss has also won five straight against the Commodores at Vanderbilt Stadium since dropping a 31-9 game in 1992.

REBEL NOTEBOOK

Today's game marked the start of the 109th football season at Ole Miss.
Ole Miss is now 81-23-5 (.766 winning percentage) in season openers.
The Rebels have now won eight straight season openers since losing 46-13 to Auburn in 1995.
Today's contest was the first time Ole Miss had opened its season against an SEC opponent since that 1995 contest with Auburn.
The Rebels are 8-5 (.615 winning percentage) in season-opening games against SEC opponents.
Ole Miss is 30-37-3 (.450 winning percentage) in SEC openers, including 2-1 against Vanderbilt.
With the 24-21 win, Ole Miss has now won two straight conference openers since breaking a nine-game losing streak in conference openers with last year's 45-38 win over Vanderbilt in Oxford.
Ole Miss is now 5-0 all-time during the month of August.

OFFENSIVE NOTES

Senior WR Chris Collins caught 6 passes to extend his streak to 23 consecutive games with at least one reception.
Collins also moved past Willie Green (1986-1989) and into a fourth-place tie with Floyd Franks (1968-1970) on the school's career receptions list with 127.
Collins' 42-yard reception in the fourth quarter was the 125th of his career.
With 91 yards receiving, Collins passed Michael Harmon (1979-1982) and Floyd Franks (1968-1970) and into fifth place on the Ole Miss career list for receiving yards with 1,763. Entering today's game, Harmon ranked fifth with 1,760 yards and Franks was sixth with 1,707.
Junior WR Bill Flowers did not catch a pass today, snapping his receptions streak at 19 games.

DEFENSIVE NOTES

Senior DT Jesse Mitchell recorded his first career fumble recovery in the first quarter.
Senior LB L.P. Spence intercepted his first career pass in the end zone to stop a Vanderbilt scoring drive with 11:55 left in the second quarter.
Ole Miss has not allowed a rushing TD in its last 19 quarters since Georgia's J.T. Wall scored on a 1-yard un in the first quarter of last year's game in Athens on November 9.

SPECIAL TEAMS NOTES

Senior PK Jonathan Nichols' made field goals of 54 and 51 yards to become the first kicker in school history to have two field goals of over 50 yards in the same game.
Nichols' 54-yard FG with 3:52 left in the game was a career long, bettering his previous long of 51 set in the second quarter, and is tied for the fourth-longest in school history.
With 10 points (3 FG, 1 PAT), Nichols moved past Les Binkley (1999-2000) and into sixth place on the Ole Miss career list for points by a kicker with 151. The 151 points is also tied with FB Paige Cothren (1954-1956) for ninth place on the all-time overall scoring list.
Nichols converted his only PAT attempt of the game to extend his streak to 50 straight PATs made. It is the third longest streak in school history and nine shy of the record held by Steve Lavinghouze (1973-1975) at 59.

DEBUTS: Ole Miss had 10 players, including three true freshmen, make their collegiate debuts in today's game: DB Iroko Ayodele (Jr.-JC), DE Ken Bournes (Jr.-RS), DB Bryan Brown (Fr.-RS), DB Charles Clark (Fr.-HS), TE Lawrence Lilly (Fr.-RS), DB Trumaine McBride (Fr.-HS), LS Sidney McLaurin (So.-Sq), RB Lorenzo Townsend (Jr.-RS), RB Marvin Vaughan (Jr.-RS) and LB Patrick Willis (Fr.-HS)

VANDERBILT POSTGAME NOTES

Commodore Passing Attack
Vanderbilt recorded its most impressive passing attack of the Bobby Johnson era Saturday against Ole Miss. Commodore quarterbacks completed 21 of 33 pass attempts for 298 yards and three touchdowns. It was the most passing yards since Greg Zolman threw for 441 yards against Kentucky (11/10/01). Vanderbilt's highest passing total last year was 213 yards against Furman (9/7). Its most completions last year were 13 against Middle Tennessee (10/12).

Jay Cutler posted career highs in attempts (32) and completions (20) in throwing for 248 yards. Previous career highs for Cutler were 26 attempts (vs. Florida and at Kentucky), 14 completions (vs. Furman) and 215 yards (vs. Furman). Benji Walker completed his only pass attempt, a 50-yard pass completion to Erik Davis at 9:49 in the third quarter, for his first career touchdown pass.

Davis Eclipses 100 Yards Receiving
Sophomore wide receiver Erik Davis caught six passes for 138 yards and one touchdown, all career highs. He recorded his first touchdown reception on a 50-yard pass from Benji Walker at the 9:39 mark of the third quarter. Davis did not catch a pass last year. He becomes the first Commodore to total more than 100 yards receiving since Dan Stricker totaled 109 yards last year at Georgia (10/19).

First Collegiate Starts
Several Commodores made their first collegiate start including: Erik Davis (WR) and Steven Brent (C) on offense and Bill Alford (CB), Kelechi Ohanaja (SS), Andrew Pace (SS), Otis Washington (LB) and Trey Holloway (DT) on defense. Other Commodores appearing in their first collegiate game were Jason Burns, Funtaine Hunter, Kevin Joyce, Richard Freeman, Ben Koger, Nathan True-Daniels and Tolga Ertugrul.

General Notes
Junior wide receiver Chris Young made his first start since the 2001 season (vs. Auburn 9/29). The Batesville, Miss., native caught three passes for 43 yards. Young tied a career-high in receptions. He caught three apiece against Duke (9/23/00) and Georgia (10/14/00)... Ronald Hatcher's 31-yard punt return late in the third quarter was a career long... Curtis Brancheau caught his first collegiate touchdown pass, a 1-yard pass from Cutler at the 4:58 mark of the second quarter... Brandon Smith recorded his first career touchdown reception on a 2-yard pass from Cutler at the 14:20 mark of the fourth quarter... Sophomore strong safety Kelechi Ohanaja recorded his first collegiate sack when he brought down Eli Manning in a 3rd-and-6 situation midway through the first quarter. The sack was an eight-yard loss and forced the Rebels to punt on their first possession of the game... With the Commodores faced with a 4th and 3 situation midway through the first quarter, VU punter Abtin Iranmanesh fumbled the snap but recovered the ball and scrambled for seven yards and a first down.

Season Opener Comparison (2002 vs. 2003)
Vanderbilt made vast improvements in its season-opening performance from a year ago. Last year against Georgia Tech in Atlanta (8/31), the Commodores struggled in their 45-3 loss to the Yellow Jackets. Below is a statistical comparison:

2002 Opener	Statistic	2003 Opener
9	First Downs	21
109	Rushing Yards (Net)	101
116	Passing Yards (Net)	298
59-225	Total Offense	71-399
0	Fumbles Lost	1
2	Interceptions Thrown	1
25:01	Possession Time	30:54
0/0	Rushing/Passing Touchdowns	0/3

Next Game
The Commodores play host to UT-Chattanooga Saturday, Sept. 6, at 6 p.m. CT.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

Related Videos