Kellenberger: Freeze has Rebels among nation's elite

OXFORD – Ole Miss is not a program on the rise. It is a program that has risen.

That's what changed Saturday, when the 11th-ranked Rebels beat No. 3 Alabama 23-17 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. It was a heck of a game, one where the go-ahead touchdown came with three minutes remaining and it took an interception in the endzone to seal it.

"They just keep playing," coach Hugh Freeze said, "and they believe."

The fans stormed the field, because that's what Ole Miss fans do after big wins. Beating Bama for the first time since 2003 certainly qualifies; the Southeastern Conference will fine Ole Miss, and athletics director Ross Bjork will pay it. Because he knows this: it may be the last time he ever does. In the last three years, it's stormed the field after beating Mississippi State, LSU and now Alabama. That time is over.

"That took us over the hump," wide receiver Laquon Treadwell said.

This team and this coach have changed this program more than any branding campaign or "College GameDay" appearance ever could. "The new normal" is what Treadwell calls it, and one of the principal personalities in a locker room full of them is not wrong.

Ole Miss (5-0, 2-0 SEC) came into Saturday with more pregame hysteria than it has in the history of the program; it was No. 11 nationally, ESPN was in town and didn't Ole Miss and Alabama (4-1, 1-1) have the same record? This is exactly the moment, though, where Ole Miss usually stumbles. The fact that this is probably the biggest regular-season win since another No. 3 vs. No. 11 matchup … in 1952, against Maryland, says a lot.

And when Ole Miss was down 14-3 at halftime, Vaught-Hemingway Stadium was dead. Lifeless. Ole Miss had led for most of the first half, and all of a sudden Alabama scored two touchdowns (the second a scoop-and-score after a no-call on a clear facemask penalty). Not even pop star Katy Perry could have awakened Ole Miss fans from that haze, and Alabama has built a dynasty on squeezing the life out of teams at that exact moment.

Only that's not what happened. Coach Hugh Freeze went into the locker room and told his team it was a 60-minute game. Denzel Nkemdiche and Senquez Golson went to him and said that if the offense scored 10 points, the defense would do the rest. That math is fuzzy, but the point was clear: Ole Miss had believed for months it was a program ready to compete right now, and 30 minutes of football was not going to change that.

What happened next will live in Ole Miss lore for a long, long time: the teams traded third-quarter scores that got the Rebels within a touchdown. Vince Sanders gave them that touchdown with 5:29 remaining, hauling in a 34-yard pass from Bo Wallace. Channing Ward, who may just be Ole Miss' all-time kickoff team MVP, forced a fumble on the kickoff, and Wallace threw another touchdown pass to give Ole Miss the lead. Alabama had one last shot, but Golson came down with a Blake Sims' pass to end it.

The story of Ole Miss football during the last three seasons has been told often, but victory often provides an unexpected candor: in 2011 the program was so bad Golson and C.J. Johnson said they almost bailed, and they weren't alone. Golson was among the players Freeze admittedly tried to run off his roster, and those first spring practices were so bad that just watching film of them made defensive coordinator Dave Wommack squirm.

Treadwell, Robert Nkemdiche and the rest of the sophomore class made sure this program took a giant leap, but it's too easy to put all of Saturday on them. So many of the impact players — Wallace, Cody Prewitt, Issac Gross, Walton, Justin Bell and on and on and on — were either lightly recruited or just not highly rated. They were the same kind of kids that Ole Miss always recruited and had for 21 of the last 23 years the Rebs lost to Alabama.

They didn't on Saturday.

"They came from the bottom," Wommack said, "and are trying to head back to the top."

Contact Hugh Kellenberger at (601) 961-7291 or hkellenber@clarionledger.com. Follow @HKellenbergerCL on Twitter.

Key Player

Bo Wallace, Ole Miss

Much-maligned senior quarterback was clutch in the fourth quarter, throwing two touchdowns for the win.

Key figure

1952

The last time Ole Miss played in a No. 3 vs. No. 11 matchup.