Rebs hold off Gamecocks to take 43-40 SEC thriller
By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
Nov. 2, 2003
OXFORD After all the yards and all the points, Saturday's Ole Miss-South Carolina game came down to whether the Rebels could pick up a single first down.
They did.
Eli Manning fell forward for two yards to convert on third and inches late in the fourth quarter, and Ole Miss staved off a near-comeback by the Gamecocks, taking a 43-40 win.
Now 7-2 overall and 5-0 in Southeastern Conference games, Ole Miss leads the SEC West Division by one game.
"I have never been involved in a game where we were as dominant as we were at one point, and then to flip it around and get on our heels and almost not be able to get off our heels," said Ole Miss head coach David Cutcliffe. "I'm almost still in shock."
Ole Miss led throughout the game, leading 30-14 at halftime and 43-14 late in the third quarter. Three fourth-quarter touchdowns almost brought the Gamecocks back, though.
"You see 43 points and you think it's a whoopin'," said Rebels running back Tremaine Turner, who had 117 yards and two touchdowns. "We just got out of focus. We kind of let down a little bit, but we found a way to win in the end, and that's all we're worried about."
Despite another productive game from the SEC's top offense Manning had 391 yards and three touchdowns on 30-of-42 passing the game may have hinged on a blown call.
After scoring touchdowns on their first three drives, the Rebels led 21-14. Deep in his team's own territory, Gamecocks quarterback Dondrial Pinkins lined up in the shotgun and watched an errant snap fly by his head. He recovered the bounding ball and threw it away under pressure.
Pinkins was flagged for intentional grounding the end zone and Ole Miss was awarded a safety.
Replay showed Pinkins was at least a yard away from his own goal line when he threw. Nonetheless, the call gave Ole Miss a 23-14 lead.
At his postgame press conference, South Carolina head coach Lou Holtz learned Pinkins was not in his own end zone on the play.
"Once he (the referee) goes like this," said Holtz, showing the signal for safety, "it's like trying to win an argument with my wife. Her mind is made up. You can explain your side of it and you can ask for forgiveness, but that's it."
Two turnovers on their next two drives hampered Ole Miss, but the Rebels offense made good on its last drive of the first half. A 29-yard touchdown reception from Manning to Kerry Johnson gave Ole Miss a 30-14 lead at halftime.
Manning, 20-of-26 for 260 yards in the first half alone, gave Holtz flashbacks of his older brother, the All-Pro quarterback of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts.
"Peyton Manning had a tremendous game Eli Manning, Eli Manning," Holtz said, correcting himself. "I don't know if there's a quarterback any better who has more awareness than he does."
Though they trailed 43-14 with less than four minutes to go in the third quarter, the Gamecocks never quit. Touchdown runs by Daccus Turman and Cory Boyd cut the Rebels' lead to 43-27 with eight minutes remaining in the game. After Ole Miss went three and out the Rebels did so three times in the second half South Carolina receiver Matthew Thomas scored on a 98-yard strike.
Its lead cut to 43-33, Ole Miss punted after three plays yet again. And yet again, Pinkins drove against a reeling Ole Miss defense, scoring on a 20-yard touchdown pass to Noah Whiteside.
The Rebels got the ball back with less than two minutes to go, causing the Gamecocks to use their last two timeouts. After picking up the critical first down, though, Ole Miss let the clock run out.
"It was a wild game," Manning said. "It was a tough situation, but we held on and got a first down at the end of the game, that was huge to run out the clock."
Holtz said he was disappointed that his offense did not have a chance to win the game at the end.
"Everybody in the stadium knew they were going to run it," Holtz said. "We knew they were going to run it. They knew they were going to run it. We had two timeouts, and we couldn't stop them."
