The Ole Miss football team returned the practice field Monday feeling good again.
Ole Miss received huge boost to its bowl hopes Saturday with a 29-28 upset of then-No. 8 Texas A&M at College Station, Texas. Ole Miss erased a 21-6 halftime deficit thanks to the strong performance of quarterback Shea Patterson in his debut.
The win helped Ole Miss improve to 5-5 and 2-4 in Southeastern Conference play. After beating Georgia Southern to snap a three-game losing streak, Ole Miss made it two-straight wins and needs one win in its final two games to return to the postseason. It will try to reach that goal at 7 p.m. Saturday (SEC Network) when it plays at Vanderbilt (4-6, 1-5).
“It was good meeting with our kids yesterday,” Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said. “We (were) able to give them the truth about what occurred in the game. The truth was, there were a lot of good things, a lot of improvement on a lot of areas, still things that we have to improve on and we’ve got to get better at.”
“Kyle Field is a very difficult place to play in, and I’ve got to say, I am very impressed with their fan base, too. I think ours treat them the same way when they come here, and it seemed to be an environment you wish a lot of college atmospheres had. They had tremendous energy and pulled for their team, and it wasn’t the volatile things you come into in a lot of places. There were a lot of great things about the game. Our defense deserves a lot of credit. They have taken a lot of the beatings this year from me and from you and everybody else and deservedly so, but with the exception of five plays that accounted for 180 yards, our defense played a really good game and it was really fun to see it.”
Patterson was 25 of 42 for 338 yards with two touchdowns in his first collegiate action. Freeze decided to remove the redshirt from Patterson after starter Chad Kelly went down with a season-ending injury against Georgia Southern.
Freeze said he didn’t feel like the victory was validation for removing the redshirt. Instead, he was glad to see a hard-working player see success on the field.
“Does it matter what people think and that you get validation?” Freeze asked. “Sometimes you sure like it and you want it, but I have really come to a place this year where I am just going to do what I think is right for the kids and for our program, and if I get validation through some means, great. Next week there will be something to invalidate me or to complain about again. I think it was Aristotle, (I said this in the postgame), ‘If you don’t want to be criticized, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.’ I did what I knew in my heart was right for the program and for the team.”
“As long as Shea (Patterson) and his parents were OK with it, I cannot look at those seniors, who changed the trajectory of this program and say to them, ‘I am not going to give you the best chance to win your last three games.’ I can’t do that. If it hurts us four years from now or whenever his time is done here, so be it, but I did right by these young men that are here, and that’s really what the decision is. I really felt like we had a chance to win every game left, and I’m going to give those kids the best chance.”
While Ole Miss began the season as a playoff contender and consensus top-15 team, it remains engaged about the prospect of playing in a bowl game.
“They deserve to go to a bowl game,” Freeze said. “We need extra practice to continue to build our program and Shea (Patterson), in my opinion, gave us the best chance to do that. Again, how do you look at an Evan Engram and a D.J. Jones and those kids that have spent a lot of time here changing the program and say to them, ‘Hey you did a good job, but we are not going to give you the best chance to win.’ I am not saying we couldn’t have with Jason (Pellerin). We love Jason, but this is big boy football and you’ve got to go compete, and Shea (Patterson) gave us the best chance to win.”
While the recent setbacks were disheartening, Freeze said his resolve to build the program the right way increases more each day.
“About three weeks ago I kind of came to a spot in my own life where I just had a peace about the way we do things, why we do things, and how we are going to go about it,” Freeze said. “I can’t control results, and I have kind of just decided I am going to handle the wins and losses about the same, but it was overwhelmingly joyous for me to see the young men have so much fun in the locker room, particularly on the defensive side, after the game, and our coaches. There are a lot of families that pour a lot into these games and you are having a difficult season and you have to go through the testing of self-evaluation and all the things that a great leader should do. It is really good to see the people have fun that are hooked with you in this journey.
“They had a lot of fun, but the defense played an outstanding second half, only created one turnover at the end, but I would give them credit for three. The two fourth-down stops, to me, are turnovers, and particularly the fourth-and-inches was a huge stop at that point in the game. I thought they played a solid half of football.”
Still, the key to victory was Patterson.
“Offensively, (we were) kind of up and down. That was kind of to be expected when you put a freshman quarterback out in that environment with limited reps to get prepared for the game,” Freeze said. “He’d been on scout team the past four to five weeks, and they threw a lot of looks at him, too. He missed a few protections early and missed a few reads early, but made a lot of plays, too. We had some drops that really would have made his day better. There were five that easily could have been caught that kind of even make the day more impressive for him offensively.
“I thought Shea (Patterson) handled himself well; I knew he would or probably wouldn’t have done what I did in pulling his redshirt. A lot of playmakers made plays around him, the String (Damore’ea Stringfellow) catch, the Markell (Pack) catch, just a lot of good plays there, but I really think the heroes offensively are Robert Conyers and Sean Rawlings. Those are the kind of guys that go without attention and neither really probably felt good enough to play, didn’t practice all week. Then to have those two bail us out and really allow us to move Javon (Patterson) back to guard throughout the game was heroic, and we owe them a debt of gratitude, but that’s how much they love this team, this university, and this program.
“They deserve a lot to go through what they had to go through in the pain category to success for us. They did their part above and beyond. In special teams, I thought the plan was executed very well with the exception of the one kickoff return. We kept it away from their punt returners, we got points on the PAT field goal team every time it was out, and obviously the game winner was huge.”
Freeze looks forward to seeing how his team responds with a second-straight challenge on the road in league play.
“We play a difficult Vanderbilt team; they are very good at home,” Freeze said. “Derek Mason is one of the guys I have great respect for in this league. I think he is what is all good about coaching. I love the guy. I think he gets it first that he is developing men and doesn’t get caught up in trying to define himself by a win-loss record or what the scoreboard says or what people say.
“He is a man’s man, and he believes confidently in himself and his core values and you can see him building character in those young men that play for him; they compete hard for him. He knows what he’s doing defensively, and offensively they are getting better, so it’s definitely not an easy out. It never is in this league, but playing a team like coach Mason’s is always difficult for us.”
n In related news, Patterson earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors, while junior kicker Gary Wunderlich collected SEC Special Teams Player of the Week accolades.
The duo was instrumental in the largest fourth-quarter comeback by an Ole Miss football team in 18 years. Trailing by 15 entering the fourth quarter, the Rebels scored 23 points in the final 15 minutes. Patterson led Ole Miss on three touchdown drives in the quarter before setting up Wunderlich’s game-winning 39-yard field goal with 37 seconds remaining.
Also, Engram was named a semifinalist for the 2016 John Mackey Award, announced Monday morning. A semifinalist for the second time in his career, Engram is one of eight players up for the award, which is given annually to the most outstanding collegiate tight end.
Adam Breneman (Massachusetts), Jake Butt (Michigan), Gerald Everett (South Alabama), Cole Hikutini (Louisville), Bucky Hodges (Virginia Tech), O.J. Howard (Alabama), and Jordan Leggett (Clemson) also were selected.
Engram leads the team in receptions (59) and receiving yards (824 yards). He also has seven touchdowns. Averaging 82.4 yards per game, Engram is the only tight end in the nation to average at least 75 receiving yards per game.
Engram also is one of 10 finalists for the 2016 Senior CLASS Award due to notable achievements in community, classroom, character, and competition. He is also a two-time nominee for the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team and a member of the 2015 SEC Community Service Team.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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