Gators Have Another Opportunity to Climb SEC Ladder as Ole Miss Visits Swamp
Friday, October 2, 2015 | Football, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – These Ole Miss Rebels are not the Ole Miss Rebels that Florida head coach Jim McElwain remembers.
In his four years as Alabama's offensive coordinator from 2008-11, the Crimson Tide bulldozed their way to four consecutive wins over Ole Miss, the last one a 52-7 road win in which Alabama rushed for 389 yards and scored its most points in an SEC game in more than 20 years.
“The more we run it the better we run it,'' Alabama coach Nick Saban said afterward. “We're more like Joe Frazier than we are like [Muhammad] Ali. We have to pound it.”
The new-and-improved No. 3-ranked Rebels (4-0, 2-0) are more like Ali. They score in a flurry, averaging more than 54 points a game entering their matchup Saturday night against the No. 25-ranked Gators (4-0, 2-0)
Saban has been on the losing end of the SEC West rivalry the past two years, the first time the Rebels have ever beaten Alabama in back-to-back seasons. Their most recent meeting came two weeks ago, a 43-37 Mississippi victory that landed Rebels safety Trae Elston on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
As McElwain watched film this week to prepare for the first game at The Swamp between ranked opponents in three years, the Rebels closely resemble an elite SEC team.
“They deserve every bit of accolades they are getting,'' McElwain said. “The overall talent level and what they've done in recruiting to get some great players in there on both sides of the ball, man, they have really stepped up their game.”
The Rebels' turnaround started after the 2011 season when head coach Hugh Freeze was hired to replace Houston Nutt. The rebuild received a huge infusion of talent in the 2013 recruiting cycle, which finished ranked among the best in the country thanks to the signing of the No. 1 overall prospect, defensive lineman Robert Nkemdiche.
The 6-foot-4, 296-pound Nkemdiche is a nightmare for opposing offensive linemen and has shown this season he can help the Rebels on offense if needed, scoring three touchdowns.
“Power, explosion,'' McElwain said when asked what he has seen from Nkemdiche on film. “It's not as much he's a great pass rusher, but how disruptive he is in the run game. They recruited a good one there.”
Ole Miss followed their victory at Alabama with a 27-16 victory over Vanderbilt. Meanwhile, the Gators are coming off the program's biggest win since the 2012 season to re-enter the national rankings for the first time in two years.
Florida's 28-27 come-from-behind win over Tennessee with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown drives led by quarterback Will Grier gave McElwain's young team and Gator Nation a huge dose of optimism.
“When you start winning games and get on a four-game win streak … it gives us a lot of confidence,” senior receiver Valdez Showers said. “It definitely gets us exciting. We're not taking it lightly.”
The way the Gators won was equally impressive.
Trailing 27-14 in the fourth quarter, Grier engineered a 17-play, 86-yard scoring drive to trim Tennessee's lead to six. And then on fourth-and-14 on the ensuing drive, Grier hit freshman receiver Antonio Callaway for a 63-yard scoring pass.
The Florida defense, which has preserved victories or kept the Gators close in so many games in recent seasons, celebrated like the sold-out Swamp as Callaway raced for the end zone.
“We were on the other side of that for once. If felt good,'' senior linebacker Antonio Morrison said. “Last year we would get a three-and-out, sit down for maybe a minute and we're back up, [getting] ready to punt. Our offense is keeping drives alive. We're sitting down, we're over there getting tight. We're not used to that.”
Grier and several of his teammates have battled the flu this week as the Gators attempt to defeat a ranked team for the first time since upsetting No. 9-ranked Georgia last season in Jacksonville. McElwain said this week that more than 10 players had come down with symptoms and reports surfaced Friday that Grier was one of them.
While Grier has started three consecutive games, McElwain did not rule out sophomore Treon Harris, who started the season opener, playing prior to Grier getting sick.
“We've got two really good quarterbacks, and still do,'' McElwain said. “Both are very capable of playing in this league.”
Regardless if the flu impacts personnel decisions on Saturday, the Gators were already an underdog, a rarity at home over the years. And Saturday's game opens an October stretch for the Gators that includes trips to Missouri and LSU, and their annual showdown against Georgia.
Both coaches expect to learn a lot about their teams.
“These games test you and your team," Rebels coach Hugh Freeze told reporters. “The environment tests you. When you have a quality opponent that is very well coached and very confident right now, a team that is ranked in the Top 25 right now, it is going to test you."
If the Gators win Saturday, McElwain will become the first UF head coach to start his inaugural season with five consecutive wins since Steve Spurrier 25 years ago.
He is more concerned about how his team responds to the heightened attention and interest in the wake of the emotional win over the Vols.
“This is going to tell us a lot of where we're at, still the infancy of this program, how we're building it,'' McElwain said. “Here is another opportunity to see how we handle whether it be adversity, or in this case, handle a little success from an emotional standpoint. Our guys have done a pretty good job so far of living in the now, and yet you don't ever find out until you play the game on Saturday.”
As Ole Miss attempts to distance itself from the struggles of the past, the Gators want to take another step toward matching past success.
