Oklahoma Holds Off No. 19 Ole Miss 24-17 in Rain-Soaked Sunday Game in Norman

Ole Miss had 38 seconds, the football and one last chance after recovering an onside kick in the rain in Norman. The Oklahoma defense would not give up another yard that mattered. The Sooners held on to beat No. 19 Ole Miss 24-17 on Sunday afternoon at Memorial Stadium, a game pushed back a day by the nationwide FAA ground stop and played in front of 83,226 fans on SEC Network.

Oklahoma built a 14-0 lead in the first quarter on a long opening drive and a 75-yard punt return touchdown by Isaiah Sategna III, then leaned on its running game and a defense that never let Ole Miss find a rhythm. John Mateer ran for 70 yards and a touchdown, Oklahoma held the ball for 36:31, and the Sooners won for the second straight week to improve to 6-4 overall and 4-3 in the SEC. Ole Miss, which arrived after a 42-7 loss to Georgia, fell to 6-4 and 4-4 in league play with its second straight defeat.

A fast start for the Sooners

Oklahoma set the tone with the first possession of the afternoon. The Sooners went 74 yards in 13 plays and burned 7:40 off the clock, and Mateer finished the march with an 8-yard touchdown run at 5:54 of the first quarter. Tate Sandell added the extra point for a 7-0 lead.

The second score came without the offense. Ole Miss was forced to punt on its next series, and Sategna fielded the kick and went 75 yards for a touchdown at 3:29. In a game where points were hard to come by on a soaked field, that one return turned out to be the margin.

Ole Miss answered early in the second quarter. Trinidad Chambliss and the Rebels put together an 11-play, 75-yard drive, and Joshua Dye ran it in from 19 yards out at 13:27. Lucas Carneiro's kick made it 14-7, and neither team scored again before halftime.

Oklahoma grinds, Ole Miss chases

The third quarter belonged to the Oklahoma ground game. The Sooners took a 12-play, 70-yard drive that lasted 6:33, and Jonathan Hatton Jr. finished it with a 5-yard touchdown run at 8:21. Oklahoma led 21-7.

The Sooners nearly put the game away on the next series. Oklahoma put together a 14-play, 52-yard march that took 7:46 and carried into the fourth quarter, reaching the Ole Miss 21. On fourth-and-3, Sandell's 39-yard field goal try at 13:22 sailed wide, and Ole Miss had new life.

The Rebels used it quickly. Chambliss led a seven-play, 79-yard drive in just 1:37 and capped it with a 26-yard touchdown pass to Caleb Odom at 11:45. Suddenly it was 21-14 with most of the fourth quarter still to play.

Oklahoma responded the way it had all afternoon, by keeping the ball away from Chambliss. Mateer hit Rocky Beers for 12 yards on third-and-6, then found Beers again for 12 more on third-and-7. An Ole Miss offside penalty and three Tory Blaylock runs moved the Sooners to the Rebels' 24, and Sandell made a 41-yard field goal at 4:52 to finish a 12-play, 51-yard drive that ate 6:53. Oklahoma led 24-14.

The turning point

Ole Miss still had time and got help right away. On the first play of the next drive, Oklahoma's Eli Bowen was flagged for pass interference, a 14-yard penalty that moved the ball to the Ole Miss 39. The drive stalled from there. Dye gained 3 yards, a pass fell incomplete, and after an Ole Miss timeout Michael Boganowski sacked Chambliss for a 6-yard loss.

That left Ole Miss facing fourth-and-13 from its own 36 with 3:25 to play. Chambliss went deep for Deuce Alexander, and Bowen broke the pass up near the Oklahoma 20. The play went to an automatic review, and the call of an incomplete pass was upheld. It was the second time Bowen got a hand on a throw in that sequence, and it took away the Rebels' best chance at a tying touchdown.

Oklahoma could not fully close it out. The Sooners gained 3 yards on their next three snaps, and Sandell's 51-yard field goal attempt at 3:04 missed. Ole Miss drove 43 yards in 11 plays, but the drive bogged down at the Oklahoma 24, and Carneiro hit a 41-yard field goal on fourth-and-14 with 42 seconds left to make it 24-17. Ole Miss recovered the onside kick, but its final six plays covered just 26 yards, and the clock ran out before the Rebels could get a shot at the end zone.

Standouts and the numbers that mattered

Chambliss, a semifinalist for both the Walter Camp and Maxwell awards, did most of what Ole Miss managed on offense. Chambliss completed 14 of 27 passes for 127 yards and a touchdown without an interception, and was the team's leading rusher with 84 yards on 11 carries, including a long of 32. Dye added 58 rushing yards and a touchdown on 11 carries and caught four passes for 29 yards. Odom caught four balls for a team-high 56 yards and the fourth-quarter score.

The Ole Miss defense gave the Rebels a chance. Tah'j Butler made a career-best 15 tackles with 1.5 sacks, according to Ole Miss Athletics, and Jaylon Braxton had a career-high 10 tackles and a pass breakup. Luke Ferrelli added nine tackles, and Joenel Aguero had eight. As a unit, the Rebels finished with three sacks and five tackles for loss.

For Oklahoma, Mateer did not need to throw much. The Sooners quarterback went 10 of 19 for 111 yards and added 70 yards and the opening touchdown on 16 carries. Oklahoma ran 49 times for 188 yards, with Lloyd Avant carrying 15 times for 46 yards, Blaylock adding 48 on nine carries and Hatton scoring on one of five attempts. Beers led the receivers with four catches for 39 yards. Kip Lewis made 14 tackles, and David Stone had a sack.

The overall numbers were nearly even. Ole Miss outgained Oklahoma 306 to 299, and both teams had 19 first downs and zero turnovers. The difference was in how long each team kept the ball. Oklahoma converted 9 of 16 third downs, Ole Miss converted 4 of 12, and the Sooners held a time of possession edge of 36:31 to 23:29. Ole Miss was also flagged seven times for 47 yards, compared with four for 39 by Oklahoma.

What it means

For Oklahoma, this was a second straight win, following the 23-7 win over No. 25 Florida a week earlier, which came days after the program handed play-calling duties to Jason Witten. The Sooners had dropped a 42-25 game to South Carolina in Norman before that. Oklahoma has now won two in a row with the same blueprint: long drives, a heavy dose of the run game and a defense that keeps opponents off the field. The Sooners host Texas A&M on Nov. 21 and close the regular season at Missouri on Nov. 28.

For Ole Miss, the loss stings in a different way. The Rebels came into the week ranked No. 19 after falling 42-7 to No. 2 Georgia in Oxford, and back-to-back November losses could cost the Rebels their place in the AP Top 25 when the next poll is released. Ole Miss hosts Wofford on Nov. 21 and then plays Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl on Nov. 27.

Closing take

This was not a pretty game, and it did not need to be for Oklahoma. The Sooners scored once on special teams, controlled the clock and trusted their defense to win the final four minutes, and it did. Two missed field goals kept the door open longer than it should have been, but Bowen and the Oklahoma secondary shut it when it counted. Ole Miss, meanwhile, got another strong all-around game from Chambliss and a career day from Butler, but a punt return and a long list of third-down stops proved too much to overcome on the road.

The full box score is on ESPN (opens in a new tab), and Ole Miss's postgame recap is on the Ole Miss Athletics site (opens in a new tab).

Sources: ESPN box score, play-by-play and team stats; Ole Miss Athletics (olemisssports.com) game recap and schedule; Oklahoma Athletics (soonersports.com) schedule.

Photo: Ole Miss Athletics.