.png&width=48&height=48&type=webp)
The University of Mississippi Athletics
FRIDAY FLASHBACK: Ole Miss - Arkansas 1990
11/6/2015 | Football
FRIDAY FLASHBACK rewinds to some of the memorable Ole Miss games from this week's all-time series. This week looks back at "The Hit" and the Clarion-Ledger's account of the events on Sept. 22, 1990 in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Rebels best Hogs by a foot
By Rusty Hampton, The Clarion-Ledger
Sept. 23, 1990
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Ole Miss football is now not only a game of heart-stopping endings, it is also a game of inches.
Twelve, to be exact.
That's how close
Three Rebels stopped him short, and Ole Miss upset the 13th-ranked Razorbacks 21-17 before a sellout crowd of 54,890.
Ole Miss, 2-1, won here for the first time since 1960. It broke a five-game Razorback winning streak in the series, and it seemed only fitting that a goal-line stand clinched the victory.
The Hogs held a nearly unbelievable statistical edge. They ran 93 plays to Ole Miss' 43, gained 24 first downs the Ole Miss' 8, had 427 total yards to Ole Miss' 111, and had the ball 40 minutes and 30 seconds to Ole Miss' 19:30.
The only thing
"You win with the kicking game and defense," Ole Miss coach Billy Brewer said. "That's what we won with today, same as
The statistics were very similar to last year at
He and strong safety Chris Mitchell combined Saturday to stop Dickerson on the one-foot line as the final seconds ticked away.
"That's just the Rebel style of football," Godwin said of the close finish. "We never give up and we feel like we can win, no matter what.
"That's what makes it so great to play with these guys, because no matter what happens to us we feel like we can pull it out."
In the season-opening 23-21 victory over
This time the roles were reversed.
"We knew it would be up to us to win the game," linebacker Shawn Cobb said.
The Razorbacks had driven from their 36 to the Ole Miss 5. With 11 seconds on the clock and both teams void of timeouts,
Grovey pitched the ball to Dickerson at about the 10-yard line, near the
Just as Dickerson started to spin away and fall into the end zone, Mitchell came over and finished the tackle.
"I just remember looking up and seeing two seconds and the clock was still running," Godwin said. "That's all I could see."
"I thought my momentum carried me across the goal line," said Dickerson, the game's leading rusher with 58 yards on 17 carries. "I really didn't know what happened. Everything was in slow motion. It was line I could feel the seconds ticking off the clock. I thought I could take the defensive man on and get the touchdown, but he hit me just enough to keep me out."
Ole Miss has a knack for that all day.
In the first quarter, Godwin knocked E.D. Jackson out of bounds at the 2-yard line at the end of a 52-yard screen pass from Grovey. Two plays later, Ole Miss' Danny Boyd recovered Aaron Jackson's fumble.
The Hogs got inside Ole Miss' 10-yard line three more times in the first half twice on fumble recoveries but only came away with field goals.
The Rebels feared Grovey's scrambling ability and quickness on the option. "He's slippery as an eel," was tackle Kelvin Pritchett's description.
Grovey scrambled for an 11-yard touchdown that put the Hogs ahead 17-14 in the third quarter, but was sacked three times (twice by Phillip Kent) and ended with minus-11 net rushing.
He burned the Rebels for 270 passing yards 128 on seven catches by Derek Russell but couldn't make the big play when he it.
"They had a good defensive plan," Grovey said. "I give them a lot of credit."
"They shut our offense down, but we seemed to come up with the big play on defense any time we wanted to," Ole Miss free safety Todd Sandroni said.
Tom Luke made his first start at quarterback in place of injured Russ Shows and completed just 3 of 11 passes for 59 yards. The Rebels gained 52 net yards rushing, on 32 carries.
Vincent Brownlee was the offense star. He caught a 25-yard touchdown pass from Luke early in the second quarter, then returned a punt 89 yards for a TD to put the Rebels ahead 14-6 late in the half.
Forty-nine of the Rebels' yards came on two plays: The 25-yard TD pass to Brownlee and a 24-yard pass from Luke to Randy Baldwin that set up Jim Earl Thomas' 13-yard TD run in the fourth quarter.
That TD put the Rebels ahead with 13:45 left.
In the noisy dressing room after the game, Godwin asked defensive coordinator Robert Henry how many total yards the Hogs got.
"I don't know," said Henry.
"They got 17," replied Godwin, referring to the Hogs' total points.
"And a loss," said Henry. "That's all that counts."