OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss did exactly what they were supposed to do Saturday night.
Georgia Southern was a heavy underdog coming into the game and the No. 5 Rebels didn’t give their critics anything to really gripe about. All you can do against an over-matched opponent is dominate and that’s what they did.
Maybe the biggest news to come out of this game was Ole Miss’ defense finally giving up a touchdown. It came in the second quarter and about all it did was make the halftime score a little closer in a 52-13 win by the Rebels that really wasn’t that close.
Quarterback Jaxson Dart kept his name square in the middle of Heisman Trophy conversations with 418 yards of total offense. It’s all he needed.
Wide receiver Tre Harris was Dart’s target 14 times and had 11 catches for 225 yards and two touchdowns. Maybe the biggest of them was a 70-yard scoring strike that set the big-play tone of Ole Miss’ offense for this one.
BIG DAY TRE 🤯
11 REC. 225 YARDS. 2 TD.@OleMissFB x #SECFB pic.twitter.com/DZ99IbRErz
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) September 22, 2024
Don’t get too worked up over the touchdown. It was the first of the season and right now, the Rebels’ defense appears to be the defense that gave up just 194 yards of offense. Ole Miss racked up another big night with 607 yards, including 288 on the ground.
If Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin’s primary coaching target this week will be the 11 penalties for 133 yards. He knows that won’t work in the eight remaining SEC games, starting with Kentucky next week at Vaught-Hemingway.
Maybe, though, the biggest number of all was put up by the Rebels’ defense. They only allowed Georgia Southern 37 yards rushing. Against a non-league opponent, that is a huge boost of confidence, but again, it’s not the SEC.
Kiffin knows all this. What he does know is this team has shown what they can do against the teams they should be doing it against.
That’s all Ole Miss needed to do in this one. They did it and now things start to get serious.
