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The University of Mississippi Athletics
FRIDAY FLASHBACK: Ole Miss - Auburn 1965
10/31/2008 | Football
FRIDAY FLASHBACK rewinds to some of the memorable Ole Miss games from this week's all-time series. One of the greatest games between the long-time SEC rivals occurred not in conference play but in the Liberty Bowl classic. The following is the local Commercial Appeal's account of the events of Dec. 18, 1965.
Night Falls, And So Does Tiger Rally
By David Bloom
Commercial Appeal
The tremendous rally on the blustery day failed to take away Ole Miss' 13-7 victory in this day-night sortie of the bowl into Memphis Memorial Stadium. But it was a near thing, a very near thing.
Auburn's tigerish attackers had gone from their own 36 to the Ole Miss nine. With fourth down and one to go, the clock ticking away, Jim Urbanek led a horde of blue-shirted defenders to jump the skinny frame of Alex Bowden, bury the quarterback on his 16-yard line and take the ball away.
Thus it was a couple of orbital shots by kicker Jimmy Keyes that turned the decision in favor of Ole Miss which had the crowd shouting, groaning, sometimes ecstatic.
There was a great deal of excitement in this football game, not the least of which was provided by Keyes' exploits. Not only did he kick field goals of 42 and 30 yards, but he played a middle guard of all-star proportions.
And it was an unsuccessful kick that brought the one moment of fiery disagreement from Auburn. Ole Miss was leading, 10-7, when Don Lewis lined his sights for a field goal try from the 21. He was kicking at an angle. The ball was high enough, far enough, but slightly off to the right. Referee Red Cavette immediately gave the signal that the ball was off right and Lewis and his holder, Tom Bryan, jumped high in protest, argued for a moment, pointed to the runway where the ball landed. But the referee and the officials had the bead on it.
The War Eagle, which flapped its wings in glee of Auburn's second period touchdown that amounted to a 7-3 lead at the half, couldn't be coaxed off its perch.
Auburn salvaged a great deal from the game, even in defeat. It showed a football team with a bounce off a 30-3 setback by Alabama in the final game of the season. It showed gameness and pure resolution to come back after Keyes had kicked Ole Miss into a 13-7 lead.
And Auburn provided the most valuable player of the Liberty Bowl in Bryan, who led the last futile raid into Ole Miss territory and had Rebel hearts in a state of palpitation. This quarterback turned fullback gained 11 yards in 19 carries and far outstripped Mike Dennis of the Rebs, who managed 75.
The statistical chart showed Ole Miss with 189 yards running and only 24 passing, but by a coincidence, the Rebels scored on one of the two in 10 that Jody Graves completed. He threw to Doug Cunningham when Ole Miss came back from the half to take the lead, 10-7, and never relinquished it.
In totals the Rebs showed 213 yards, with only 24 in the air while Auburn was amassing 268, with 156 afoot and 112 on the passing of Bowden. Slim Alex hit on 11 of 24, but in his attempts to get some others away, the alert Ole Miss line smothered him for 45 yards of losses.
The plot of this game was a little on the conservative side, as Coach Johnny Vaught of Ole Miss indicated when he said, "tough. Not outstanding in scoring but a thriller from start to finish."
Particularly the finish, when his comment was, "the turning point was when we threw Bowden for a loss in the last ... I mean to tell you Bryan is good and Bowden did a good job. We expected Auburn to throw more and they showed a more rugged running game than we anticipated."
Jordan said the thing that hurt Auburn most was the rush put on quarterback Bowden and "at the end we could have won it twice but Freddie Hyatt slipped down after making a catch, and Danny Fulford didn't see the ball when it was right on him in the end zone."
There were two occasions when boldness backfired and Ole Miss turned one of them into a three-point advantage early in the second quarter. On fourth down at the Ole Miss 35 and a yard to go, Bowden was thrust back seven yards and failed on a rush by Keyes and Mike Nelson. Jimmy Heidel promptly ran the ball 32 yards to the Auburn 25, and Keyes got his field goal at the end of the advance.
Ole Miss was luckier. The Rebs tried a fourth down rush by Mike Dennis at the Auburn 33 and Bill Cody, the linebacker, and Robert Fulghum threw him for a two-yard loss. The Rebs got the ball back almost immediately.
"I'm proud of our boys because we played well enough to win," Jordan said, "and especially proud because we came back from that Alabama loss."
He could well be. The Liberty Bowl, thanks to Auburn and Ole Miss, got off to one swinging start in Memphis.