A good first half was negated by a poor performance in the second half, as the Rebels of Ole Miss beat the Oklahoma Sooners, 26-14, Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss. It was the first time these teams had met on either campus and the first time the Sooners have never played in the state of Mississippi.
With their third consecutive loss, OU is now 4-4 overall and 1-4 in the SEC. No. 18 Ole Miss improved to 6-2 and 2-2 SEC. The Sooners haven’t lost three straight games by double digits since 1998.
OU head coach Brent Venables was asked after the game how he would talk to his team about the losing streak.
“You be honest with them,” he said. “Sometimes the truth hurts. These are guys that deeply care. They have a lot of respect for being an Oklahoma Sooners. They believe in how we do what we do.”
Ole Miss wasted no time getting on the scoreboard, as the Rebels took only six plays to march down the field and score on a nine-yard touchdown run by Henry Parrish Jr.
Oklahoma marched down the field on their first possession, assisted by some Ole Miss penalties, but the Sooners were stopped on fourth down on the Rebels’ two-yard line.
The Sooners tied the score at 7-7, when Jackson Arnold threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Bauer Sharp into the end zone.
With 7:29 left in the second quarter, Caden Davis kicked a 35-yard field goal to put Ole Miss ahead, 10-7.
The Sooners then put together an impressive drive that covered 92 yards in 13 plays and was capped with a nine-yard touchdown pass from Arnold to Jacob Jordan. It was the longest yardage drive of the season for the Sooners.
OU led 14-10 at halftime, but didn’t show up for the second half.
The Sooners had the ball to start the second half but failed to score.
Minutes later, Ole Miss took the lead when Caden Prieskorn caught a 24-yard touchdown pass from Jaxson Dart, the extra point was no good, and the Rebels led 16-14.
Before the end of the quarter, the Rebels scored again on a J.J. Pegues one yard run to put Ole Miss ahead, 23-14.
The Rebels wrapped up the scoring in the fourth quarter with Davis’s second field goal of the game, this one from 42 yards.
“These guys aren’t going to flinch, I promise you,” Venables said. “I think everyone on the outside might assume guys will give up or check out. Not these guys.”
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said his team felt a lot of pressure to win this game.
“I think they (the players) were really concerned (at halftime),” Kiffin said. “It’s not a good feeling when you go into a game that everybody thinks we’re supposed to win because the spread is a certain way. All of a sudden, we’re supposed to blow an SEC team out.”
OU’s Arnold completed a season high 22 passes on 31 attempts for 182 yards and two touchdowns. Sooners’ running back Jovantae Barnes led all rushers in the game with 67 yards on 16 carries and totaled 57 receiving yards on five catches.
The Sooners gained 329 total yards of offense, while the Rebels used an air attack to total 380 yards.
Dart completed 22-of-30 passes for a whopping 311 yards and one touchdown, for the Rebels.
“This one felt really good,” Dart said. “Definitely at halftime there was a lot of discussion amongst us players. Felt like we missed out on a critical opportunity in the first half. It felt really good to get back in the win column so we can continue to stack these.”
The Sooners will host Maine on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. CDT. The Black Bears are coming off a 24-14 loss at Rhode Island and are 4-4 on the season, 2-3 in CAA.