Lost in all the excitement over the first full weekend of the college football season was the fact that the season actually got started two days earlier. Some of the accomplishments from the Thursday games were forgotten by the time Florida State and Pittsburgh put a cap on Week One.
Senior running back Jeff Scott of Ole Miss was one of a bevy of stars for the Rebels as they knocked off Vanderbilt 39-35 in Nashville. Just when the situation looked bleak for Ole Miss, with Vanderbilt leading 35-32 and 1:07 remaining in the game, Scott took things in his own hands … or feet as the case may be.
With everybody in the stadium expecting a pass play from quarterback Bo Wallace, the Ole Miss quarterback who already brought the Rebels back from one 11-point deficit already, Scott took a handoff at went around left end and did not stop running until he reached the end zone 75 yards llater. Last year it was Vanderbilt snatching a last-minute victory over Ole Miss. This year the Rebels returned the favor thanks to Scott’s tremendous run.
“The game is never won, just like it was never won last year when we were down at their place and came back and won,” Vanderbilt coach James Franklin said. “They did the same thing to us. We got a taste of our own medicine.”
“I knew we had to make something happen,” Scott said. “Last year, it was very painful. They came back. It was basically the same situation. We didn’t want to go through that again and feel that pain. We can’t. It is a long ride back home.”
“The last snap they had gone two-man on defense and it’s very difficult to throw against that, so during the timeout I figured we had to get a shot at a field goal at least to go into overtime,” said Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze. “I felt comfortable that the run would get us ten or more yards if they played two-man again, and it would have but then we had a guy seal the edge and Jeff made a phenomenal run on the outside. I can’t say that’s what I was expecting but kids make great plays on good teams and he made one.
“I knew that it would be a good run play. Obviously, I didn’t know it would go all the way to the house. But I thought it would be a good run play.”
“They blocked us in space and (Scott) is fast,” Franklin said.
It was the play of the game but Freeze didn’t see it; he had to watch it on the stadium’s video screen.
“I was standing back behind the offense so I could see what was going on, and I really thought he would go out of bounds to stop the clock. After he got the ten yards people got in front of me so I started watching the jumbotron and then I was thinking ‘no way’. But then I said ‘thank you, God’.”
It was another big play in a career of big plays for the 5-foot-7, 172-pounder from Miami. Scott is ninth in school history with 1,942 career rushing yards. He is 10th with 16 rushing touchdowns. Scott will be under the gun to continue to produce big plays over the next five games. After a home game with Southeast Missouri this weekend, the Rebels have to face Texas, Alabama and Auburn on the road. They finally get to come back to Oxford on October 12 when they host Texas A&M. LSU and Idaho at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium are to follow.
“We’re looking forward to getting back to play at home, which is always special,” said Freeze. “We have to play with a little something extra and defend our home, and so we’re excited about playing in Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium in front of our home crowd.”