Postgame Digestion: Ole Miss Ate an Average-Sized Plate of Unseasoned Rice, Which is Fine

Five days after losing to Florida State on a national stage and a week before hosting the best team in college football in their SEC home opener, the Ole Miss Rebels broke in the newly rennovated Vaught-Hemingway with a tuneup game against the Wofford Terriers. Wofford, a school famous for...

/Googles it

...being located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, is not the type of opponent that generates any interest from fans or excitement from players. But Wofford, and their “meh” version of the triple option offense, did serve nicely as the very bland filling of this sandwich of marquee games, as a “going through the motions” type of afternoon was exactly what we all needed on Saturday. Think of it as a test drive for the Vaught’s new bowled-in endzone, video boards, and natural playing surface leading up to a game that, as it has for three years now, carries SEC West implications in its result.

An Aperitif

NEW MASCOT ALERT!

Get on the Grovey the Grove Squirrel train or get the hell out of the way. This mascot’s here to get drunk and remind you to clean up after yourselves, which is peak Mississippi faux gentility if I’ve ever seen it.

“That Didn’t Sit Well”

I’m not going to bother taking anything away from this game. Ole Miss scored on its first four drives, then put the thing on autopilot until the clock hit 00:00 because that was really the point of this game. Ole Miss got a win and got on to playing Bama.

Of course, Ole Miss had two players injured, one of which won’t be back for the rest of the year. Freshman receiver DK Metcalf, who has already shown to be a big, physical red zone threat, broke something-or-another in his foot. So, yeah, football is stupid and awful and terrible.

“Going Back for Seconds”

Let’s watch this on repeat:

Watching the backups get some time and relish in the moment is actually pretty special. Good on you, Jordan Hebert. Maybe football isn’t so stupid and awful and terrible after all.

A Digestif

If you didn’t watch at home, you likely missed how crisp and clean the newfangled Vaught looks on television. The bowled-in endzone - when it was still full of students - was a bit stunning at first. The new grass looks grassy enough. The new video boards are a much needed addition. And SEC Network’s Andre Ware couldn’t stop talking about how much food he had eaten at Taylor Grocery the night before. College football weekends in Oxford are a really, really damn good time, and now Ole Miss is inching towards having a stadium that can be as much a part of the excitement as the Grove and the Oxford nightlife. In all, the gameday experience for Rebels fans has improved tremendously over the past decade, with most of the major enhancements coming just in the past five years. Even I, someone who is less than ten years removed from his Ole Miss graduation, struggle to keep up with everything that’s going on. That’s a good thing.