By Billy Watkins
Ole Miss’ low point and high point of the season so far were written in history. It is not always an accurate predictor, of course, but history almost always gives us reference points. Hints. Warnings. Hope.
If you’re willing to dig into it, history will tell you: “Don’t be surprised if … ”
THE LOW POINT
The Grinch-like gift that Kentucky presented Ole Miss in Oxford on Sept. 28 was, and remains, bewildering: Wildcats 20, the 4-0 and ninth-ranked Rebels 17.
That game still haunts Ole Miss in the middle of November as it fights to claim one of the 12 playoff spots.
“Very discouraging, disappointing,” Rebel coach Lane Kiffin said after the game. “One for 10 on third down. We had a chance to win or tie the game in all three phases and didn’t do it.
“But all of a sudden, our program isn’t terrible. I’m not going to overreact to a tight loss, just like I wouldn’t overreact after a tight win. One game doesn’t define a season.”
But the window to the playoffs certainly wasn’t as big as it was when the sun rose that day.
History told the Rebels to beware. They had managed to win the three previous games vs. the Wildcats, but all were a struggle. Winning margins: 3 points, 1 in overtime and 3.
Yes, the players and coaches change, but it seems history doesn’t pay much attention. Sports are weird like that.
Kentucky has long been a thorn in Ole Miss’ side. Just ask Archie Manning.
Eighth-ranked Ole Miss journeyed to Lexington in 1969 — Archie’s junior year — in the second game of the season and the SEC opener. Ole Miss had won easily over Memphis State the week before, while Kentucky was routed by Indiana 58-30.
Final score: Kentucky 10, Ole Miss 9.
“We lost some tough games at Ole Miss when I was there, but I always felt we were prepared,” Manning told me while researching my book on the history of Ole Miss football in 2009. “Our coaches went out of their way to make sure we weren’t complacent.
“But that Kentucky game, we ran the Power-I, which is a good formation. But we weren’t a Power-I bunch. When you had (receivers) Floyd Franks and Vernon Studdard and Buddy Jones and Riley Myers, you didn’t need one of them in the backfield.”
After watching the film, head coach Johnny Vaught realized it, too. On Monday before the Rebels were to play Alabama in the first prime-time SEC game to ever be televised nationally, Vaught told Archie to get ready. “We’re going to let it rip.”
Ole Miss lost 33-32, but the performance — Archie running and throwing like few had ever seen — set the tone for the rest of the season. They continued to let it rip. Archie became a folk hero and the Rebels won six of the final seven regular season games. That included victories over No. 6 Georgia, No. 8 LSU and No. 3 Tennessee.
The Rebels capped off the season by beating third-ranked Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, 27-22. They let it rip all the way to No. 8 spot in the final AP rankings.
The Kentucky loss, Archie will tell you, changed everything in 1969.
Could the 2024 Rebels eventually say the same thing?
THE HIGH POINT
My cell phone rang on Oct. 29, three days after Ole Miss had played its best half of the season in a 26-14 win over visiting Oklahoma.
The caller was Brad Gaines, the former Vanderbilt Commodore who was on the receiving end of defensive back Chucky Mullins’ hit in 1989. Chucky, of course, was paralyzed and eventually died nearly two years later from a pulmonary embolism.
I covered the game that day in Oxford for The Clarion-Ledger, and fate dealt me the hand of delivering the news to Gaines in the Vandy locker room.
“How is the guy that got hurt?” he asked me as I approached him.
I shook my head.
“He broke his neck,” I told him as the entire locker room fell silent. “They don’t think he will ever walk again.”
I can still see the blank-faced Gaines falling slowly back into his locker.
We did not know each other then, but we’ve become friends through the years. Strange how a few seconds can connect you for life.
Gaines was calling to tell me he had been to Chucky’s grave the day before, the 35th anniversary of the hit.
He still goes there three times a year — on May 6, the date Chucky died; Christmas Day; and the date of the collision. He drives four hours one way, from the Nashville area to Russellville, Ala. to clean Chucky’s tombstone and that of his mother’s. He pulls weeds and places flowers on both graves.
“I had my usual talk with him,” Gaines told me during the phone call. “I just talk and talk and talk, and he listens. I know he can hear me.”
Gaines’ phone call stuck with me for days.
Ole Miss routed Arkansas in Fayetteville, 63-31, the next Saturday. And now the showdown was set: No. 2 Georgia at No. 16 Ole Miss with heavy playoff implications. If the Rebels lost, they were likely out of it. Georgia had a little wiggle room with just one loss already.
The matchup was one of the top subjects locally and nationally.
During the week of the game, a connection between Chucky and a win over Georgia came to me.
One of his greatest moments as an Ole Miss Rebel occurred two weeks before his injury. The visiting Bulldogs were 2-2 under first-year coach Ray Goff. Ole Miss was 3-2 in Coach Billy Brewer’s seventh season.
Midway of the third quarter, Georgia trailed 10-7 and faced third-and-goal from the Rebels’ 11-yard line. Quarterback Greg Talley lofted a pass toward a receiver near the left sideline in the south end zone. Seemingly out of nowhere, Chucky went airborne and slam-dunked the pass to the ground.
Georgia settled for a tying field goal. Ole Miss went on to win, 17-13, and finish 8-4, including a Liberty Bowl victory over Air Force.
Three nights before the latest Ole Miss-Georgia tussle, I received a text. It read: “Last time the GA Dogs came to Oxford ranked this high, in ’75 & ’76, they left bruised and bloodied!Maybe history repeats.”
It was from Tim Ellis, who quarterbacked the Rebels to both of those victories — 28-13 in 1975 and 21-17 in ’76. Somehow, both games were at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
In the latter, Georgia was ranked fourth in the country. It would be Vince Dooley’s Bulldogs’ only regular-season loss. They would go on to win the SEC championship and finish No. 10 in the final AP rankings.
Coach Ken Cooper’s Rebels would win just one more game and finish 5-6.
Which leads us to the 2024 showdown: No. 16 Ole Miss 28, No. 3 Georgia 10 — the Dawgs’ first loss to anyone other than Alabama in 53 games.
You know the story by now. Five sacks and nine tackles for loss by the smothering Rebel defense. Quarterback Jaxson Dart accounting for 249 total yards and a score on a bum ankle. Redshirt freshman QB Austin Simmons calmly leading his team to a tying touchdown in the first quarter while Dart’s ankle received medical attention. Caden Davis threading five field goals..
“We’ve really played well over the past two games,” Kiffin said. “We dominated Arkansas and a three-score win over Georgia. I’m really proud of how our team is responding.”
It will need to respond twice more to make the playoffs — at Florida at 11 a.m. Saturday and home against Mississippi State on the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving. Tricky tests, for sure.
But these Rebels — ranked No. 9 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings — seem to be playing their best at the most crucial time and determined to make history of their own.
#########
