Rebels do it in all phases, then call off the dogs in second half

JOEY VAUGHAN
DM Sports Editor

The Rebels finally put it all together Saturday night.

For the first time this season, the offense, defense and special teams all showed at the same time, and poor Kentucky never had a chance in the face of the Rebel onslaught.

Derrick Burgess set the tone early, and the defense blew up to the surprise of most of the 51,448 fans in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. If Burgess isn't the SEC Defensive Player of the Week, he's been robbed.

Defensive coordinator Art Kaufman and his staff are to be commended for the plan that turned the vaunted Wildcat passing game into the "see how bad we can make Lorenzen look" show.

The offense was there, too, bringing a balanced attack that was, for once, effective from all angles. Neither the passing nor running games had to carry the other. If the Rebels can keep it going, they will be a very difficult team to stop.

It was good to see Chris Collins and Omar Rayford contribute, also. If Romaro Miller is comfortable with all of his receivers, like he looked against the Wildcats, the offense can be the explosive machine everyone expected to see.

One area I was concerned with, though, was the lack of killer instinct. When the Rebels came out of the gate in the second half with a dominating, time-consuming drive, it looked like they would be able to do pretty much whatever they wanted to. They could have, too, if not for David Cutcliffe's patented prevent offense.

It's frustrating to watch the Rebels sit on a lead like Cutcliffe likes to. Miller had a chance to have another 300-yard passing game, but the conservative play-calling in the second half made for a boring end to the game.

Before all you reactionaries out there start the talk about sportsmanship and running up the score, think about this. Joe AP Voter in Los Angeles or Connecticut will never see how thoroughly the Rebs dominated this game. They will only see the final score on some agate page and think "Ole Miss probably scored late to beat a not-so-great Kentucky team at home. Not very impressive."

Cutcliffe would probably say that rankings don't mean much to coaches, and he's right. It's fine with me if he's not concerned with the polls, but I bet the high school athletes he's recruiting are. When your rival is on national television beating the No. 3 team in the country, you need to make a statement, one that could have been made Saturday night.