It’s not every college football season that the Ole Miss Rebels enter November ranked in the top five and having already downed Alabama.
It’s also not every year when a single play derails what could have been.
In arguably the most gripping game last season between Southeastern Conference teams, Ole Miss and Auburn had exchanged leads four times when the Rebels trailed 35-31 with 90 seconds left and had the ball at Auburn’s 20-yard line. A pass from Bo Wallace to Laquon Treadwell appeared to be the go-ahead score at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, but the crowd quickly went silent when Tigers linebacker Kris Frost pulled Treadwell down from behind, causing an awkward tackle that resulted in the star receiver suffering a fractured tibia and a dislocated ankle.
As the immediate pain overcame Treadwell, he fumbled just short of the goal line. The Tigers recovered to preserve a hard-fought victory.
“The margin between winning and losing is so small in this conference,” Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said on a recent conference call. “There was so much riding on that game with us being No. 3 and No. 4 in the BCS poll, and so much was made of that. For it to end that way – I had never been a part of that kind of gut-wrenching end, and it sure took a lot out of us.