Rapid Reaction: Lane who? Ole Miss runs Tulane off the tracks in Pete Golding debut
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When a head coach gets a new job opportunity, it’s usually because his team was a special one. And when a head coach leaves for a new job opportunity, the team he left behind doesn’t normally cease to be special.
Ole Miss is a special team. It showed that once again on Saturday in a 41-10 demolition of Tulane.
Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss might need some hot yoga in the coming days to work out a few knots that are sure to swell up after his College Football Playoff debut, but anyone who was concerned about the focus of the Rebels’ leader or his teammates entering Saturday was quickly put at ease. Ole Miss scored 59 seconds into the game — the fastest touchdown in CFP history.
The Rebels’ first 5 plays from scrimmage gained 30, 25, 20, 30, and 26 yards. At the end of the first quarter, Ole Miss was averaging 14.1 yards per play.
Fireworks were fewer and farther between in the second quarter, but the Rebels took a 17-3 lead into the halftime break and then never took their foot off Tulane’s neck in the second half.
Ole Miss scored 10 in the third and 14 in the fourth. It forced a turnover in both quarters and scored off of each. Tulane quarterback Jake Retzlaff was limited to 13 rushing yards on 10 attempts. He fumbled twice and threw an interception on the Green Wave’s opening drive of the game.
Chambliss completed 23 of his 29 passes for 282 yards. He also ran for 36 yards and produced 3 total touchdowns. With the performance, he moved into the top 10 on the all-time single-season passing yards leaderboard at Ole Miss.
He briefly left the game in the second quarter with an apparent injury, but returned in the second half.
Ole Miss also lost running back Kewan Lacy to an injury in the game. Lacy’s first 2 touches went for 50 combined yards, and he finished with 87 yards and a score on 15 carries, but he left the game in the third and did not return.
Lacy sits second on Ole Miss’s single-season rushing yards list. He’ll enter the Sugar Bowl against Georgia (Jan. 1) needing 201 yards to tie Quinshon Judkins for the most in a season in school history. Of course, his status will be worth monitoring closely over the next week.
There will be those who are worried about the Rebels’ collective health coming out of the first round, but those are concerns for another day. Saturday night will be about celebrating a massive win that let an entire fanbase exhale.
Ole Miss set a program record for attendance on Saturday. The fans chanted for new coach Pete Golding before the game and during it. And Ole Miss? Still special.
Ole Miss 41, Tulane 10
Here’s the Ole Miss-Tulane box score (use the dropdown menu to select team or player stats), followed by the complete play-by-play:
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
