What Did I Miss from Ole Miss?

I repeatedly made the bold prediction that we would "win big", "score at least 42 points" and "win by 30+ points" against Ole Miss. As the first half unfolded, I felt pretty good about those predictions but in the second half, our red-zone offense went into a coma and the stranger wearing Blair Walsh's uniform failed on 3 field goal attempts that should have been TD's anyway. So, I fell short on the 42 to 45 points scored and on the margin of victory being at least 30 points. But, I am not here to talk about my failures... instead, I want to brag about a few things I fairly accurately foretold:

- 90+ yard TD drive in the first half.
- Aron White's first TD in 2011
- Crowell getting 130 yards rushing (he actually had 147) and I also predicted he would have 50 yards receiving - which he would have gotten all on one screen pass if Murray had not overthrown him... did you see how wide open the field was on that play? Damn!
- Georgia would approach 500 yards in offense (we had 475 yards)
- Dawgs defense will dominate the Rebel offense (held them to 34 yards rushing and 149 yards passing and 2 interceptions). Our defense held them to one TD and 3 of 14 on third down conversions. We also turned in 4 sacks. Let's hope that is a trend.

Our team did indeed dominate on both sides of the ball and while Ole Miss is a mess of a football team right now, they were playing extremely hard so it is not as if we did this against a team that had no pulse. We must solve our red-zone ineptitude if we are going to have any chance to win more SEC ball games. Kentucky is the only listless club left on the schedule. And, we also must stop giving away touchdowns via special teams. In fact, I am surprised that we are still looking for our first special teams TD. Come on Dawgs, let's take back the special teams phase of the game.

A few more positives...
- It was good to see Rambo ball-hawking and coming up with two interceptions. I believe he also had a pass break up.
- Our replacement ILB's Mike Gilliard and Emarlo Herrera led the team in tackles with 7 and 6 respectively. It will be great to get Christian Robinson and Alec Ogletree back, but it was good for these guys to get more experience. They will again have to step up against Mississippi State this week, which will prove to be a tougher assignment.
- We had only 4 penalties for 30 yards. Since the Boise game, in which we had 7 penalties, we have now had only 5, 5 and 4 in the past three games. That is a surprising and welcome trend.

Looking back, I still feel like the prediction of scoring 45 points and winning by more than 30 was not irrational. We just need to get touchdowns when in the red zone. That would do wonders for Blair Walsh's kicking percentage as well because extra points are much easier than field goals.

Up next... Georgia will win big against Mississippi State. (Oops, I did it again.)

Go DAWGS! GATA!