Mississippi quarterback Bo Wallace (14) during a timeout during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Arkansas on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013, in Oxford, MS. Mississippi won 34-24. (AP Photo/ The Daily Mississippian, Austin McAfee)
Ole Miss notched its third straight win on Saturday with a 34-24 victory over the Arkansas Razorbacks and, with a record of 6-3, is now bowl eligible for the second year in a row.
In his first season, it took head coach Hugh Freeze and the Rebels until the last regular-season game to get their sixth win to become bowl eligible. In his second season, the team was able to get that sixth win with three games left on the schedule, leaving the Rebels poised to finish better than last year and go to a bigger bowl at the end of the season.
Freeze overall was pleased with the team’s performance against Arkansas.
“We are maturing and heading in the right direction. We’re still young at a lot of places,” Freeze said. “I was concerned about how we would react to the first early game. We didn’t have quite the energy early in the game, but we still won the game.”
Junior quarterback Bo Wallace felt that while the Rebels didn’t have their best game, they still did well and got the victory.
“We’re trying to build the program to where, maybe we don’t play as well, but we win,” Wallace said. “I feel like that’s exactly what happened today.”
Even though this sixth win of this season wasn’t quite as dramatic as last year’s against Mississippi State, senior offensive lineman Emmanuel McCray thought it was even better.
“It’s even better because we got it earlier,” McCray said. “We’ve proven to ourselves that we’re a better team than we were last year. We’re winning the games we’re supposed to win and competing in the games that are supposed to be competitive. I think we’ve come a long way as a team, and we’re way better than last year.”
Wallace was also happy with becoming bowl eligible but feels the team still has more to accomplish.
“Six wins isn’t our goal,” Wallace said. “It’s good to go ahead and get that over with, build upon it and get as many wins as we can.”
Now that the team is bowl eligible, the focus on everyone’s mind has shifted to getting to a larger bowl game.
“People can say it’s not, but we’re not trying to go to a 6-6 bowl,” Wallace said. “We’re trying to go to a bowl game with nine wins. That’s on our mind right now.”
Overall, Freeze was pleased with how far the team has come and that it has exceeded his original expectations.
“My first spring, we had a lot of issues,” Freeze said. “To be bowl eligible each of the first two years, we are ahead of schedule. I did expect to be bowl eligible this year after last year, but my plan when I first came in was to get to a bowl in year three.”
The remaining games on Ole Miss’s schedule are home games against Troy and Missouri and an away game against rival Mississippi State. These games will heavily influence what bowl game the Rebels will compete in to close out the season.
For continuing coverage of Ole Miss football, follow @TheCodyThomason and @thedm_sports on Twitter.
— Cody Thomason
