Ole Miss has suffered two losses this season and each one had its own unique torture method.
Florida completely dominated Ole Miss for four quarters and ended with a 52-28 win. The Rebels never stood a chance in that one.
Texas was different because with 14 minutes left in the game, it felt like Ole Miss was going to win. A third quarter rally that erased a 24-3 halftime deficit against a spiraling Longhorns team was the perfect script.
But Texas reasserted its dominance in that last 14 minutes, extinguishing any hope of an Ole Miss win (and forcing yours truly to rewrite an entire column). It took every second of that time, but the Longhorns got the 34-27 victory.
Two losses that are hard to stomach in different ways. The biggest difference, though, isn’t the games themselves. It’s what awaits Ole Miss the following week.
After Florida, the Rebels had a bye week. This week, they’re hosting an Auburn team that beat then-No. 1 Georgia two weeks ago.
No rest for the weary, right?
After Florida, Pete Golding’s staff had time to address everything that went wrong in Gainesville. No opponent-specific game plan to install. No Saturday deadline. Practices could focus on fundamentals, particularly on defense, while banged-up players had extra time for treatment and recovery.
And the results suggested it worked.
Florida gashed Ole Miss for 302 rushing yards. Coming out of the bye, the Rebels held Vanderbilt to 103 yards on the ground, then Missouri to 39. Those weren’t small improvements.
This time, there’s no opportunity to devote an entire week to fixing Ole Miss.
The Rebels have to correct what happened in Austin while preparing for Auburn. Every practice will include defensive play calls and offensive installations for a new opponent. Recovery and rehab must fit into a normal game week.
That makes this as much a test of the team’s mindset as its football.
“Honestly, disappointed,” Golding said of the postgame locker room. “I think you’ve got to look back and ask, did you do everything that you needed to do to give yourself your best shot? That’s players and coaches.”
The question matters after the Rebels looked like two different teams Saturday, overwhelmed before halftime and rejuvenated afterward, only to surrender control again in the fourth quarter.
Kam Franklin echoed Golding’s message.
“The second half and first half, they’re like two different games,” Franklin said. “If we just kept the same intensity throughout the whole game, it would have been a different result.”
Identifying mistakes is the easy part. Fixing them on a compressed schedule is another matter, particularly with the emotional sting of letting a comeback slip away.
“Definitely pretty low right now, pretty down,” quarterback Trinidad Chambliss said. “I can’t feel sorry for myself. Our team can’t feel sorry for ourselves.”
Franklin said the answer is to treat each week independently.
“We flush it,” he said. “We’re going to watch the tape tomorrow. We’re going to shut it down, correct it and then come out and get ready for Auburn.”
Golding made the timetable even clearer.
“All we’re concerned about tomorrow is us, and then we’ll move on to Auburn on Monday,” he said.
One day to process Texas. Then it’s Auburn.
Ole Miss proved it could use a bye week to turn a painful loss into meaningful improvement. Now it has seven days to show those lessons stuck.
Auburn isn’t giving them an extra week to figure it out.
