Finding positives after a 42-7 loss is like looking for unsweetened tea at a Mississippi family reunion.
You know there’s probably some somewhere, but it might take a while to find and you will get a few weird looks.
Georgia dominated the game from start to finish and left Ole Miss with more questions than answers.
Still, not everything was bad for the Rebels.
If you’re determined to find a few bright spots from a long night in Oxford, here are three things that actually went right for Ole Miss against the Bulldogs.
Shekai Mills-Knight’s continued emergence
With Kewan Lacy unavailable again, Ole Miss needed someone to step up in the running game. Shekai Mills-Knight continued to show he’s capable of doing just that.
The sophomore running back finished with 52 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries, averaging 4.0 yards per attempt. He also caught two passes for 15 yards, giving him 67 total yards from scrimmage.
Those numbers might not seem particularly impressive, but consider that Ole Miss finished with just 66 rushing yards as a team. Mills-Knight accounted for nearly 79% of that production and scored the Rebels’ only touchdown.
Mills-Knight has been asked to take on a bigger role in Lacy’s absence, and even against a Georgia defense that dominated the line of scrimmage, he continued to show why the coaching staff has confidence in him.
Horatio Fields gave Ole Miss something offensively
There weren’t many bright spots in Ole Miss’ passing game Saturday night, but Horatio Fields was certainly one of them.
Fields caught eight passes for 96 yards, both team highs. He accounted for more than half of Ole Miss’ 186 passing yards and caught eight of the 10 passes thrown his direction.
His longest reception went for 26 yards, which also happened to be the Rebels’ longest completion of the night.
While Trinidad Chambliss struggled to find a rhythm against Georgia’s relentless pass rush, Fields provided one of the few reliable options in the passing game. No other Ole Miss receiver finished with more than 23 yards.
At least Ole Miss avoided the shutout
When the third positive from a football game is that a team managed to score points, that should tell you just about everything you need to know about how the night went.
But hey, at least Ole Miss didn’t get shut out.
Trailing 35-0 entering the fourth quarter, the Rebels finally put together their best offensive possession of the night. Ole Miss marched 75 yards in 16 plays, taking nearly six minutes off the clock before Mills-Knight scored on an 8-yard touchdown run.
The Rebels also converted all three of their fourth-down attempts during the game, so there’s another positive if you’re looking hard enough.
Of course, Georgia immediately answered with a three-play, 75-yard touchdown drive of its own to make it 42-7.
So, yes, Ole Miss avoided the shutout. Unfortunately, that’s about as much as can be said for the Rebels’ performance Saturday night.
