Ole Miss 39 Georgia 34 - Sugar Bowl Champs

The Ole Miss Rebels defeated the Georgia Bulldogs 39-34 to take the Sugar Bowl trophy and to advance to the semifinals of the college football playoff.

The first thing to say is this: This is the best Ole Miss football team of my lifetime. It doesn’t matter what happens after this, though I am pretty excited to get Miami in the semi-final game (more about that later). I didn’t give the Rebs much of a shot to win this game. To beat Georgia, you have to stop their run, and Ole Miss couldn’t do it during the first matchup earlier in the season. Georgia ran through Ole Miss like crap through a goose in that game. In this Sugar Bowl victory, Ole Miss did a much better job at stopping the run, and that kept them in the game. Early on as Ole Miss showed some stiffness on defense, I said that if Ole Miss can continue to stop the Georgia running game, I’ll take anything else they want to do. I’ll take the Georgia quarterback trying to beat us with the pass. That’s how you beat Georgia.

Truthfully, this Ole Miss team just looked better than Georgia, and the score was closer than it should have been. The first half was marked by some uncharacteristic play from this Ole Miss team. Lacy, who is usually solid at carrying the football, fumbled it and spotted Georgia an easy touchdown. Usually sure-handed receivers dropped passes, and the defenders seemingly forgot basic tackling, giving Georgia at least two easy first downs. It was like they were trying to lose. The broadcast showed Coach Golding giving the defense an impassioned pep talk toward the end of the first half, and sure enough, in the third quarter the tackling improved, and the receivers found their hands again. Lacy was able to grind out some of his characteristic strong runs, and Chambliss evaded every attempt by the Georgia defense to sack him. A handful of Chambliss’ passes were magical, especially the two-point conversion that put Ole Miss ahdead by a field goal, the touchdown to go ahead by ten with nine minutes to go in the game, and the deep pass to Stribling to set up the game-winning field goal, and speaking of field goals, Carneiro kicked three, the game-winner, and a 56-yard Sugar Bowl record.

At the seven minute mark, Ole Miss got the ball back, and it needed to put together a sustained scoring drive, leading only by a field goal. It did the opposite of that and went three-and-out, setting up Georgia to score the game-winning touchdown. Then, Ole Miss gave up two pass interference penalities to keep the Georgia drive alive, all the way down to the two-yard-line. From there, Ole Miss’ defense stiffened up one final time and held the Bulldogs to a field goal to tie the game. In spectacular fashion, the Rebels’ Chambliss hit some key passes, and set up the Carneiro game-winner.

Happy to send the Bulldogs home. Ole Miss is the lone remaining SEC team in the playoff.

HOTTY TODDY!