OXFORD, Miss. - Ole Miss has cured its inability to put away ranked teams after taking big leads.
As for Georgia, the number of problems continue to mount for first-year head football coach Kirby Smart.
After escaping Nicholls State and Missouri the past two weeks, No. 12 Georgia was overwhelmed from the start Saturday afternoon in a 45-14 loss to the No. 23 Rebels before a crowd of 65,843 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Ole Miss (2-2, 1-1 SEC) scored the first 45 points of the game, marking the first time the Bulldogs (3-1, 1-1) had allowed such an onslaught without responding since a 48-0 loss at Georgia Tech in 1943.
"We shouldn't be able to do that," Georgia junior safety Dominick Sanders said. "We shouldn't be able to give up that many points. We're better than that, and we've got a lot to learn."
Ole Miss, which lost a 28-6 lead in a 45-34 loss to Florida State and lost a 24-3 lead last week in a 48-43 loss to Alabama, built an advantage that was beyond insurmountable against the Bulldogs. The Rebels raced to a 31-0 halftime lead and averaged 10.1 yards per play behind the stellar play of senior quarterback Chad Kelly, who completed 13 of 17 first-half passes for 233 yards and two touchdowns before adding a 41-yard rushing score midway through the third quarter that made it 45-0.
Bulldogs freshman quarterback Jacob Eason, meanwhile, experienced a 7-for-21 first half that produced just 64 yards and included a 52-yard interception return by Derrick Jones midway through the first quarter that gave Ole Miss a 10-0 lead.
"He saw the wrong coverage and threw the ball to the wrong guy," Smart said of Eason's ill-fated attempt to Terry Godwin. "At the end of the day, you can throw the ball to the wrong guy. He's gotten away with that some, but he threw it behind him and to the wrong guy, which is lethal.
"He didn't see the coverage right, but he came off the field and admitted it."
Georgia was down 24-0 midway through the second quarter when punter Marshall Long threw a 29-yard pass to Sony Michel to the Ole Miss 31-yard line. Instead of providing a spark, the fake punt was followed by Jayson Stanley dropping a potential touchdown catch and Isaiah McKenzie dropping a potential first down over the middle.
On fourth-and-8 from the Ole Miss 29, Eason threw down the left sideline for McKenzie, who dropped it again as he was crossing the goal line.
"It was just a focus deal," McKenzie said. "You can't drop the ball, because it can snowball from there. I dropped two big passes that I should have caught."
Georgia's loss was its worst from a point-differential standpoint since the 42-10 loss to LSU in the 2011 Southeastern Conference championship, a game the Bulldogs led 10-7 at halftime. It was the worst regular-season loss since the 49-10 humiliation against Florida in 2008, but that was just a 14-3 deficit early in the third quarter.
The Bulldogs fell behind 17-0 after the first 15 minutes Saturday, and it only got uglier from there.
"I expected our team to come out, compete and play well," Smart said. "You never believe you're going to play like that. We didn't respond real well when they had success, yet every other game we had responded. We didn't get away with some things defensively today that we had gotten away with in the past, and they made the plays down the field when they had to."
Said sophomore cornerback Juwuan Briscoe: "Honestly, I didn't think this was possible. Things happen, and you've got to take it on the chin and learn from it."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.