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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Fresh off the Field: All Three Phases
10/6/2024 | Football
Presented by Kroger
The Rebels used a big special teams play to set up their first touchdown and never looked back. Ole Miss dominated in the red zone, much thanks to a pair of JJ Pegues touchdowns, and meanwhile held the Gamecocks to just a lone field goal in three red zone trips. Head coach Lane Kiffin came away pleased with the decisive bounce-back victory that could've been even more lopsided than the final score showed.
I thought this was a really hard week with that loss. Probably the worst feeling after a loss since we've been here any game. We just handed that thing away in so many ways and really not what we thought we were going to play like," Kiffin said. "So our guys battled this week. They battled through that. Didn't let it affect them in a second game. A 24-point win—we fumbled going (into the end zone) and missed some other wide-open people—that's a lot of people doing right. I'm really pleased with our players that they came back.
Special Teams
One of the biggest moments in the game came at the end of South Carolina's first drive. Facing 4th-and-1, the Gamecocks ran a fake punt, but Chris Paul Jr. shot in off the edge and stuffed the run attempt to set up Ole Miss' first touchdown drive, and the Rebels never trailed from there.
The special teams unit wasn't done, though. In the second quarter, punter Fraser Masin pinned South Carolina on its own 6-yard line, which led to Ole Miss starting its following series at its own 41, making for an easy touchdown drive to take a commanding 24-3 lead. Caden Davis was a perfect 2-for-2 on field goals (24, 44) on a fantastic day overall for the specialists.
It was really good. Credit to our special teams and defense," Kiffin said. "We had a feeling they would fake a punt today. We saw Walter rushing and stuff like that, just to be safe in the first part of the season. Thought they might do something like that on the running side. Really glad that our coaches did well, and the players made the plays, it was big momentum.
Defense
Ole Miss was without perhaps its top pass rusher in Princely Umanmielen on Saturday, but you would never know it by the results. The Rebels had six sacks and 10 tackles for loss as TJ Dottery, Suntarine Perkins, Walter Nolen, Jared Ivey and JJ Pegues all dropped Gamecocks behind the line of scrimmage on the day, while Paul notched three QB hurries and the key no-gain fake punt stop.
It's tough to pick who had the best day on the Rebel defense. Dottery and Perkins each had double-digit tackles and multiple tackles for loss. Trey Amos had eight tackles and a spectacular diving interception. But the nod ultimately has to go to Walter Nolen, who had five tackles, three for a loss, two sacks and a fumble recovery—not to mention all sorts of disruption that didn't make it on the stat sheet.
I thought Walter was really good today," Kiffin said. "They hold him a lot every week and they were holding him today. We got out holdings fixed on defense, I kept telling the refs 'Ok well we were fixing ours, but then they keep holding out D Linemen,' especially Walter. Just was proud of him because I talked to him about how it's going to be a long game, it's a hot game, you are going to play a lot, go out there and don't waste a lot of energy between rounds. I thought he did a really good job. You would see these massive celebrations. I told the guys expect to make plays.
Offense
After struggling last week against one of the nation's top defenses in Kentucky, the Rebels had no time to sulk as they had to quickly turn around to prep for another top-30 defense and the SEC's top pass rusher through five weeks, Kyle Kennard.
It wasn't a perfect outing for the Rebels, who admittedly left some points on the board in the second half, including a nearly 70-yard touchdown connection between Jaxson Dart and Antwane Wells Jr. that was fumbled out of the side of the end zone. Nonetheless, it was a strong response for the Ole Miss offense. The Rebels' total, passing and rushing yardage totals came as season-highs for the South Carolina defense.
I was just really impressed with how we were able to come together," Dart said. "We had a player meeting, a lot of meetings with just one on one, individual guys. When you have such a talented team and you have a game like that, you just screw up on your own, you definitely have to look at yourself in the mirror and see what you are about and what's your identity as a team. Just being able to have those conversations. The team felt a lot of urgency this week and I was just happy how we were able to come back together instead of divide.
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