The Peach Bowl was supposed to be about No. 11 Ole Miss’ fast-paced offense against No. 10 Penn State’s nation’s-best defense.
One part proved true. The Rebels were very fast and very good on offense Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in steamrolling Penn State 38-25 and improving the SEC to 7-1 against the Big Ten in New Year’s Six games.
Ole Miss scored more than three times as many points as the 11.4 that Penn State was allowing on average. With 540 yards, Ole Miss more than doubled the FBS-best 223.2 yards per game the Nittany Lions were allowing in front of an announced attendance of 71,230.
Led by quarterback Jaxson Dart, running back Quinshon Judkins, wide receiver Tre Harris and tight end Caden Prieskorn, the Rebels set a program record with their 11th victory. Dart passed for 379 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for a touchdown, Judkins rushed for 106 yards and Harris and Prieskorn combined for 270 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Prieskorn was named the offensive MVP. Suwanee native Jared Ivey, who had five tackles, including two tackles for loss, a fumble recovery and and two break-ups, was named the defensive MVP.
“I’m very excited about how our players showed up today,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said. “To come in here and have a chance to do something that’s never been done before in the history of the program to win 11 games and against a big-time program, big-time opponent, just really proud of how they did.”
Penn State was without defensive coordinator Manny Diaz, who resigned earlier this month to become Duke’s coach. It also played without three all-conference starters who opted out of the game. The Lions failed to become the first team to win each of the New Year’s Six bowl games.
“Too many moving parts with the staff and the players against a good team,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “I won’t get into all the details, but I thought the officiating was less than desirable.”
Franklin could have been referring to several plays.
On Ole Miss’ third play, Dart appeared to be intercepted by Cam Miller near the 30-yard line. A review changed it to an incompletion.
On Penn State’s first drive, which ended with a field goal, a Franklin implied a receiver was interfered with, preventing a touchdown.
On Ole Miss’ third series, Dart was sacked and fumbled, which was recovered by Penn State near the 20-yard line. A review ruled that Dart’s arm was going forward, resulting in the ruling changed to an incompletion.
Ole Miss took advantage of the ruling to drive for a touchdown and a 10-3 lead. The drive included a trick play on fourth-and-1 on the 47-yard line in which Dart walked to the left of the formation. The ball was snapped to JJ Pegues, who was lined up in the shotgun. He received the ball and pitched it to wide receiver Jordan Watkins, who was in motion from right to left. He passed it to Dart, who had continued his run, for 15 yards and a first down.
“We had two plays backed up in their area of the field that went to replay, but those two turnovers would have been huge in the game,” Franklin said. “I’m not even saying that they were judged right or wrong. I didn’t get a chance to see it, but they were huge plays in the game.”
While Penn State’s defense had the reputation, its offense was good this season, averaging 37.2 points per game. But it had trouble moving the ball throughout the first half. Its best play – and longest play of its season—was a 76-yard pass in the first quarter from Drew Allar to Tyler Warren that was actually tipped at the line. Ole Miss had forced Allar to scramble to his left. As the linebackers moved up to pursue, Warren was left uncovered behind them. The deflected pass went to him with a mostly empty field ahead. Penn State would score four plays later to tie the score at 10-10.
Ole Miss answered with a 45-yard field goal and then a 37-yard touchdown pass from Dart to Prieskorn to take a 20-10 lead.
Kiffin said that from watching video, he didn’t think Penn State had been tested too frequently by opponents playing with tempo this season.
The Rebels began to get into a groove. As soon as a player was tackled, they would run and hand the ball to an official. Everyone would run to the next line of scrimmage, line up, and the next play would be run in a few seconds.
Penn State had trouble adjusting. Franklin said a few times they weren’t given a chance to match Ole Miss’ substitutions.
“We want to have our cleats set and be on the same page, and sometimes hurry-up causes disruption with that,” Penn State’s Kevin Winston Jr. said.
The Nittany Lions got as close as 20-17 on a 48-yard touchdown pass from Beau Pribula to Nicholas Singleton with 2:45 left in the second quarter.
It put Penn State in a good spot because it had outscored opponents 115-3 in the third quarter this season.
It was outscored 11-0 in the Peach Bowl on a 52-yard field goal and a 14-yard touchdown pass from Dart to Judkins to provide a comfortable cushion.
Dart scored again from 2 yards out with 6:29 remaining in the fourth quarter to give the Rebels a 37-17 lead and start chants of “SEC” from its red-clad supporters.
“It was really cool to come out in the second and have a dominant third quarter in a lot of phases of the game,” Kiffin said.
Kiffin said he hopes this is just the beginning of what he is building in Oxford, Mississippi.
“This is another message for a couple of pieces that may be out there: join up,” Kiffin said.
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