Monday, December 30, 2013

Music City Mission Accomplished

Ole Miss finished 2013 on a high note, beating Georgia Tech 25-17, and putting an exclamation point on an 8-5 season.

An exclamation point was exactly what the Rebels needed.

It's the kind of punctuation quarterback Bo Wallace needed, too. He got it with gusto. In fact, I'll go ahead and give him two exclamation points. Wallace followed his worst game as a Rebel in the Egg Bowl loss, with one of his best yet.

He was named the game's MVP, finishing 22 of 32 for 256 yards, as well as a career-high 86 yards rushing on 13 carries. The Pulaski, Tenn., native's 342 total yards also pushed his season total to 3,701, topping Eli Manning's school record of 3,572 yards set in 2003.

Wallace went from being a goat on Thanksgiving to flying into the upper stratosphere of Ole Miss quarterbacks one month later.

He redefined Wallacing, and in so doing he helped Ole Miss redefine it's season.

No matter what happened in late November this was a good year.

The regular season didn't end the way we wanted, but the Rebels finished 8-5, clear improvement from a year before, have another great recruiting class lined up and the forecast in Oxford still looks bright, very bright indeed. And that's all any of us wanted out of this bowl game. There was no BCS Championship on the line - just hope for a bright future. Ole Miss won that handily with a crushing defense and a very able quarterback, even if his arm and shoulder did appear weaker than usual. I'll take a weak-armed Wallace that plays like he did today over most any other quarterback out there. He's got an entire off-season to get his strength back in that throwing shoulder.

And we have an off-season to dream about a fantastic 2014. Nearly all the weapons will be back. This team is only going to get better.

We wanted hope. We got it.

Music City Bowl Mission accomplished.