Oct. 11, 2014
COLLEGE STATION, Texas(AP)--Bo Wallace ran for two scores and threw a touchdown pass and Mississippi's defense added two scores to help the third-ranked Rebels remain undefeated with a 35-20 victory over No. 14 Texas A&M on Saturday night.
Mississippi followed up last week's victory over Alabama by picking up its first victory over A&M in the seventh meeting.
Wallace gave Mississippi (6-0, 3-0 SEC) an early lead with touchdown runs on consecutive possession in the first quarter. Cody Prewitt returned an interception 75 yards for a score in the second quarter to make it 21-0.
A&M (5-2, 2-2) cut it to 14 in the third quarter, but Wallace answered with 33-yard touchdown pass and Mississippi padded the lead with a fumble return for a TD early in the fourth quarter.
Kenny Hill threw for 401 yards and two touchdowns, but also had two interceptions and a fumble for the Aggies, who lost for the second straight week after opening the season 5-0.
The crowd of 110,633, that included Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, was the largest to see a football game in the state of Texas and the most in SEC history.
Wallace scored on a 4-yard run to give Mississippi a 7-0 lead in the first quarter. A 31-yard reception by Quincy Adeboyejo set up that score.
The Aggies had to punt on their next possession and pinned the Rebels at the 1. But Wallace orchestrated an easy nine play drive capped by a 10-yard scoring trot to make it 14-0 with about two minutes left in the first quarter.
Hill completed his first nine passes before the interception by Prewitt, who darted through traffic and wriggled out of a tackle attempt by the quarterback to return it 75 yards for a touchdown to push the lead to 21-0 early in the second quarter.
The Aggies faked a field goal late in the first quarter, but were stuffed for a 1-yard loss to leave them scoreless at halftime.
A 3-yard touchdown run by Trey Williams cut the lead to 21-7 with about seven minutes left in the third quarter. It was just the second score Mississippi's first-team defense had allowed all season. The Aggies converted a fourth down to keep that drive going.
Wallace made it 28-7 with a 33-yard touchdown pass to Adeboyejo late in the third quarter. Wallace kept things moving earlier in that possession with a 9-yard run on third down where he bowled over three A&M defenders.
Hill lost the ball on the first play of the fourth quarter and Lewis scooped it up and escaped the scrum to return it for the score, expending the lead to 35-7.
Josh Reynolds grabbed a 24-yard touchdown pass with about nine minutes left to get the Aggies to 35-14.
Texas A&M forced a punt and was driving when Senquez Golson intercepted a pass at the goal line. He leads the SEC with five interceptions and the team's 12 interceptions are also most in the league.
The Rebels have forced at least one turnover in 29 straight games, the second-longest streak in the FBS.
Texas A&M entered the game averaging 47.8 points, which ranks third in the nation, but had trouble moving the ball until the fourth quarter against a Mississippi defense that entered the game allowing just 10.2 points a game.
Hill, who threw three interceptions in last week's loss to Mississippi State, seemed to struggle to find a rhythm for most of the night in his second straight game without senior receiverMalcome Kennedy, who sat out with a shoulder injury.
His second touchdown throw came when he found Sabian Holmes on a 13-yard pass on the last play of the game.
ABOUT THE GAME...
• The Aggies fell to 5-2 overall and 2-2 against the Southeastern Conference.
• It was the Aggies’ second straight loss (both against AP Top 25 opponents), marking just the second two-game losing streak since head coach Kevin Sumlin’s arrival in 2012.
• A&M fell to 4-23 all-time against teams ranked No.3 or higher in the AP Top 25.
ABOUT THE CROWD
• The above-capacity crowd for tonight’s Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M game was 110,633, which was a stadium record, a SEC record and a state of Texas record (college or pro).
#KASER4HEISMAN
• Junior punter Drew Kaser enhanced his faux campaign for the Heisman Trophy with a huge punting night against Ole Miss. Kaser averaged 50.7 yards on six boots and deposited three punts inside the opponent 20, including one at the 5-yard line and one at the 1-yard line. None of Kaser’s punts were returned, so his net average was an impressive 50.7 yards.
NOTABLES
• Sophomore QB Kenny Hill completed 42-of-53 aerials for 401 yards. It was a season-high 79.2 completion percentage for Hill, and was his third 70 percent-plus effort of the season.
• Hill completed his first nine passes of the games. Combined with last week’s Mississippi State game, Hill had completed 13 consecutive passes before the streak ended with an interception.
• Hill registered his second-career 400-yard passing game and the fifth game of 300 or more passing yards for his career.
• Freshman WR Speedy Noil recorded his first career 100-yard receiving game, grabbing 11 passes for 105 yards. The 105 yards was tied for the 12th highest tally for an Aggie freshman.
• WR Speedy Noil’s 11 receptions was one catch shy of Ryan Tannehill’s A&M freshman record of 12 set against Kansas State on Oct. 11, 2008. He recorded his first career 100-yard receiving game, with the 105 yards tied for the 12th highest tally for an Aggie freshman.
• Sophomore WR Josh Reynolds, a transfer from Tyler Junior College, reeled in his eighth receiving TD of his first season with the Aggies. No other first-year player has ever had more than seven receiving TDs in their first season in the maroon and white (Albert Connell had seven TD catches in 1995).
• True freshman DE Myles Garrett posted a QB sack to snuff Ole Miss’ first offensive series. It raised his already-A&M freshman record to 7.5, which is just a half-sack behind the SEC freshman record of eight by South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney in 2011.
• Starting his first game of 2014 at free safety was 2013 starter Floyd Raven, a senior from Kenner, La.
• Also returning to the starting lineup was cornerback Victor Davis, who had started the first three games of 2014.
FOR THE RECORD
• Game captains were senior Malcome Kennedy and juniors Julien Obioha and Drew Kaser. The Rebels won the toss and chose to receive the opening kickoff
• Junior Sam Moeller, a junior from San Antonio, Texas, was the Aggies’ 12th Man for the 20th straight game.
QUOTES...
TEXAS A&M
Head Coach Kevin Sumlin
On atmosphere at Kyle Field
"I'm really appreciative of the fans. 110,000 people: we set a couple of records tonight and had a great atmosphere. It was disappointing and Ole Miss had a lot to do with that too. We tried to run it and couldn't get that done. Then got behind and had two turnovers for 14 points. It’s hard to win when that happens, particularly against a team Ole Miss’ caliber."
On what to do moving forward
"You are always analyzing where you are. When things are going good you're analyzing and when things are going bad. As a team you're always looking to get better and fix problems. As a coach you have to be honest with your schemes and with yourself and really that was a message to players and coaches. You have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and be honest with deficiencies that have been presented and then either be able to fix those during the week or adjust during the week. There were a number of times during the day when we just got whipped and it’s hard to fix that."
On Freshman Speedy Noil
"There is a lot going on with him and I think he is coming along as good as anyone we have. He is a tough guy and he loves to play and loves to compete and is only getting better every week."
Kenny Hill
On why things weren’t clicking tonight
“Just a penalty here or there. We’re getting stopped on a first down and it would be second and long and it would be a long drive after that. There were opportunities where we were moving the ball and we would have a turnover, just tough.”
On penalties
"I just need to protect the ball better and make smarter throws. I run the ball like that all the time and I just dropped it. That’s something that just shouldn't happen and that’s on me."
On why the offense sputtered two weeks in a row
“Turnovers, and that’s my fault I had three turnovers and two of them were for touchdowns. We can’t win like that and that’s on me”
Whether it was the Ole Miss defense disruption or The A&M offense not clicking
“They did play great. They’re the top defense in the country for a reason, but I think we had our opportunities and missed them. I turned it over twice and they turned them into touchdowns. They scored 35 points and it could of ended up being 21-21 there at the end. I think we just stopped ourselves a little bit but they are a great defense and they played very well tonight.”
Mike Matthews
On the offensive line’s performance
“We didn’t do a good enough job protecting Kenny Hill in the pocket. It’s frustrating, but you have to bounce back from it.”
Ivan Robinson
On adjustments after the half
“We really didn’t change anything. We knew that after those first three scores we had to take people to the ball as much as possible, so that’s what we tried to do.”
On preparing for next week
“We have to tackle. As we face more and more of these running quarterbacks, we have to get better at tackling.”
Jordan Mastrogiovanni
On the defense’s lack of turnovers
“I think it all stems back to tackling. We’ve struggled in that aspect for the last couple of weeks. I think that’s something we need to work on; tackling, doing some turnover circuits in practice. I think if we focus on that, we’ll get better at causing some turnovers.”
On losing with 110k supporters behind you
“It’s very disappointing. We hate to let our fans down, especially when there’s 110,000 of them behind us. The fans don’t deserve that. I think we need to refocus and re-gather.”
OLE MISS
Head Coach Hugh Freeze
“I’m really pleased to come into Texas A&M, a very hostile environment, and I thought our kids handled it very well. They handled the preparation all week long very well. To come out of here with a victory in this difficult environment against a very difficult, talented team is very exciting for our program and our fans. We have some great fans who made the trip. I could hear them all night. You get into this deal to play in atmospheres like this and it was awesome to see. It’s great to be a part of 110,000 plus.”
Quincy Adebuyejo
On scoring his touchdown
“It was a bitter sweet feeling. I always wanted to score in Aggieland, and I did it in red and blue. Not the original colors that I thought coming out of high school, but I did it and I can’t thank God enough.”
Bo Wallace
On the game
“Offensively, we just played alright. We have to come back and get better. We really broke it open in the first quarter and we thought we were going to put a lot on them. We didn’t for whatever reason. We just have to get better.”
Robert Nkemdiche
On starting strong
“That was really important. To come out there with great intensity in a hostile in environment, it was crazy. I couldn’t even hear at the beginning of the game. Defense was great. We came out and we didn’t let them get anything. Going into halftime 21-0 was really big for us.”