Oklahoma-Ole Miss: LIVE In-Game Observations

John Hoover and Ryan Chapman offer their real-time observations from Vaught-Hemingway Stadium as Oklahoma meets No. 18 Ole Miss for the second time ever.

Oklahoma receiver Jacob Jordan / John E. Hoover / Sooners On SI

OXFORD, MS — Sooners on SI offers real-time observations from Oxford throughout Saturday's Week 9 matchup between Oklahoma and the No. 18 Ole Miss Rebels. Newest posts are at the top. Just keep your browser open and refresh often.

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1:17 p.m.

Just like the first half, Kiffin gets the best of Venables and Alley. 

Felt like he was dialed into the right play every time the Sooners tried to bring any pressure up until the final play of the drive, where OU didn’t have the play in. 

Oklahoma did get a bit of good fortune, though, as the extra point boinked off the left upright. 

Ole Miss back in front 16-14 with 9:34 left in the third quarter. 

— RC 

12:49 p.m.

What a half of football from the Sooners. 

Against the nation’s best rushing defense, OU ran for 125 yards. 

Jackson Arnold is making things happen off script. 

The offense is cohesive despite Jacob Sexton going down. 

And Oklahoma gets the ball back in the second half. Really impressive stuff from the visitors. 

— RC 

12:45 p.m.

Ole Miss DT Walter Nolan is helped off the field, and OU elects to decline the 10-second runoff (Ole Miss is out of timeouts).

So end of half coming up for the Sooner offense, third-and-9, 15 seconds to play and one timeout.

Stand by…

And Arnold escapes pressure, spins around and find Jacob Jordan in the end zone for a touchdown. It's OU 14, Ole Miss 10, 6 seconds left in the half.

— JH

12:35 p.m.

Jackson Arnold comes out of this 2-minute timeout having completed 7-of-10 passes for 82 yards and leads the team with 11 rushes for 44 yards. Really good on both counts.

OU has 121 yards rushing against a defense that was allowing just 66 on the ground, which leads theon nation.

The end of this half will determine a lot as Ole Miss currently leads 10-7, but there's no doubt Joe Jon Finley has been the star of the show for Oklahoma so far today.

— JH

12:30 p.m.

Lane Kiffin opted to go for it out of the timeout this time instead of settling for the chip shot field goal. 

Great work by Ethan Downs and Kobie McKinzie to stay home off the the fake and the OU defense got a huge stop. 

OU’s offense with a chance to at least take this thing to halftime. Sooners will get the ball back. 

— RC 

12:22 p.m.

Three fumbles on two plays. Never seen that before.

Anyway, Logan Howland’s gonna take the brunt of that sack and fumble by Jared Ivey on Jackson Arnold, but it looked like Febechi Nwaiwu was supposed to pull across and block him as Howland blocked down and Ivey came with a free rush on Arnold.

Sooners gotta get those details figured out so they can reduce or eliminate the catastrophic plays.

— JH

12:18 p.m.

Well, Jacob Sexton went back down ahead of this third-and-1. Howland back into the lineup. 

Joe Jon Finely stuck to the running game with Taylor Tatum, who picked up the first down, and Tatum fumbled. 

But J.J. Hester forced another fumble and recovered it to give OU the ball back at the Oklahoma 48-yard line. 

Tatum keeps showing flashes and immediately throwing it all away. The frustrating roller coaster of a true freshman. 

— RC 

12:16 p.m.

Jacob Sexton is back in at left tackle to start this drive. 

— RC 

12:15 p.m.

After the timeout, Kiffin opted for the 35-yard field goal. 

Caden Davis nails it, and the Rebels retake the lead and go up 10-7 with 7:29 remaining in the first half. 

— RC 

12:12 p.m.

It’s an interesting chess match between Kiffin and Venables, each waiting until the last possible second to send in defensive subs. 

Ole Miss has a couple of big completions on this drive, but the Sooners now face a fourth-and-3 from the Rebels 17. Big play coming up.

— JH

12:03 p.m.

Guess that’s why you play field position there. The Ole Miss punt returner was hit by Jaren Kanak as he tried to field the punt but the ball got away. Ole Miss receivers at its own 15, but that was nearly a Rebels turnover.

— JH

12:02 p.m.

Logan Howland replaced Jacob Sexton at left tackle and he was immediately scorched on the second play by Princely Umanmielen. It may be Game 5 of league play, but that sure felt like a “Welcome to the SEC” moment for Howland. 

Sooners go with a carry for Barnes to get to a punt. 

Ole Miss muffed the punt (Kanak may have arrived a split second early but no flag), but the Rebels fell on it. 

The home team will take over at the 15-yard line. 

— RC 

11:57 a.m.

Jacob Sexton is down on the field after Barnes’ 13-yard rush. 

It looks like the training staff is looking at his right ankle. He might have gotten rolled up on at the back end of that play. 

— RC

11:54 a.m.

Oklahoma survived the first quarter.

Sooners will have a third-and-2 from their own 18 coming out of the timeout. 

Really need to pick up the first down, even if OU doesn’t score, to reset field position and to continue to give the defense some rest.

Got just about everything they wanted out of the first quarter outside of the play being there on fourth-and-1 on the first drive of the game. And for this offense, that’s real progress. 

— RC 

11:52 a.m.

First quarter stats.

OU stats / OU

OU stats / OU

11:46 a.m.

Pretty good script by Lane Kiffin and his offense to start the game with a touchdown drive, but the Sooners have forced bak-to-back punts and have allowed 18 yards on nine offensive snaps.

— JH

11:44 a.m.

A squirrel just ran for a touchdown during the tv timeout. 

Fans roaring. Let’s go!

— RC 

11:40 a.m.

Look, this offense will take whatever it can take so there will be no “well Ole Miss is handing OU yardage” from this writer today. 

But Oklahoma hasn’t been able to take advantage of breaks that come its way at any point this year. 

Doing that so far. Could easily be 14-7 here in Oxford. 

— RC 

11:38 p.m.

After a couple of huge 15-yard penalties by the Ole Miss defense, Finley calls a reverse, then dials up another clever play to run Taylor Tatum out of the backfield. Arnold floats one that’s nearly a touchdown, but also nearly intercepted. Then a direct snap to Tatum, then Arnold scrambles and finds Sharp in the back of the end zone for an 11-yard touchdown pass.

Sooners have tied it at 7-7 and it could be 14-7 or at least 10-7.

— JH

11:36 a.m.

Don’t know if it’s gonna last, but the Oklahoma offense definitely has a new juice to it this week. I watched Joe Jon Finley before kickoff and he was pacing back and forth over the same patch of grass as the team stretched, occasionally high-fiving players. He seemed loose and relaxed, but did appear to have an edge to him.

Maybe that vibe played out in practice, and maybe it has carried over into the game.

— JH

11:28 a.m.

Oklahoma’s opening drive spanned 74 yards. That was the Sooners’ fifth-longest drive this year.

Two of the drives that were longer (an 85-yard drive against Temple and a 76 yard drive against Tennessee) came in fourth quarter garbage time, too. 

Progress. 

— RC 

11:27 a.m.

Huge three-an-out for the OU defense coming off the Ole Miss goal line, but a 56-yard punt flips the field. OU ball at the OU 40.

— JH

11:24 a.m.

The fourth down incompletion is going to sour a lot there, but that was a nice script from Joe Jon Finley and Kevin Johns to get Oklahoma’s offense moving. 

If the defense can figure out the communication, then maybe they can take advantage of some field position and keep the Sooners in this thing in the first quarter. 

— RC 

11:21 a.m.

Interesting call to go for it on fourth down an 1 from the 2. Arnold fakes the sneak from an empty backfield, then tries to fit in a throw to either Sharp or Thompson — who are both in the line of the throw — and it falls incomplete.

That’s a waste of a good drive for Oklahoma. Nice play-calling, good mix of run and pass, a couple RPO’s, a couple ad-libs by Arnold, a good route out of the backfield by Sharp, good run by Tatum.

But ultimately, no points.

— JH

11:14 a.m.

Oklahoma’s starters on offense:

Sexton - Ozaeta - Everett - Nwaiwu - Tarquin 

Thompson - Hester - Roberts - Sharp 

Barnes - Arnold 

— RC 

11:10 a.m.

A lot of bad on that drive from the Oklahoma defense. 

A couple of missed tackles helped Henry Parrish cap off the first possession with a 9-yard touchdown run. 

Two bad plays in coverage were followed up by a Billy Bowman facemask all before the Henry touchdown. 

Six plays, 75 yards, 2:24 off the clock and Ole Miss is up 7-0 without breaking a sweat. 

— RC 

11:09 a.m.

Ole Miss goes 75 yards on six plays and saw little resistance from the OU defense. The talk going into this one was about the Ole Miss offensive line getting pushed around by the OU defensive front.

That’s not happening. Not yet, anyway.

— JH

11:06 a.m.

It looked like there was a miscommunication in the zone coverage between Kip Lewis and Eli Bowen on that 35-yard completion. 

Damonic Williams was down with what looked to be a cramp after the play. 

He hobbled off the field, but it was under his own power. 

Ole Miss getting ready to rock at the OU 25-yard line. 

— RC 

11:04 a.m.

Oklahoma’s starters on defense:

Thomas - Williams - Jackson - Downs 

McCullough - Stutsman - Lewis

E. Bowen - Bowman - Spears-Jennings - Walker

— RC 

11:01 a.m.

Oklahoma won the coin toss and has deferred to the second half. 

Ole Miss ball up first. 

Let’s boogie. 

— RC 

10:37 a.m.

And right on cue, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports that Harris will miss this one. Big, big help. 

— RC 

10:50 p.m.

Oklahoma offensive tackle Jake Taylor is a late scratch and has been added to the OU injury report for the Ole Miss game. OU spokesman said he did not make the trip and the SEC and Ole Miss have been informed he's not here.

-- JH

10:29 a.m.

Ole Miss’ leading wide receiver Tre Harris was listed as a game-time decision. 

While I’m not very familiar with the Rebel’s warmup lines, I do not see Harris on the field. That would be huge news for OU’s defense. 

— RC 

10:25 a.m.

It looks like OU’s starting offensive line, per warmups, is going to be:

Sexton-Ozaeta-Everett-Nwaiwu-Tarquin

— RC 

10:20 a.m.

It’s hard not to love Kip Lewis. 

He flashes every time he’s on the field, but hell likely take Danny Stutsman’s spot at the heartbeat of the defense next year. He’s high energy the entire time he’s on the field, pregame warm ups included. He’s the one still talking trash with the opposing offense deep into the fourth quarter. 

Absolute engine. 

— RC 

10:10 a.m.

No real surprise here but Troy Everett is snapping to Jackson Arnold here in pregame. 

Will be the first time that duo starts together after Arnold got reinserted into the starting lineup this week. 

— RC 

10:00 a.m.

We made it to the Grove and back. Probably the place I’ve been most excited to visit this season and it absolutely delivered. Acres of prime tailgating in the Mississippi shade. 

There were plenty of crimson-clad visitors milling about, hopefully for them it won’t be the highlight of the day. 

Heck of a way to start your game day.  Back in the press box, there isn’t a whole lot to monitor before the game. Both Deion Burks and Gavin Sawchuk were ruled out last night, so all eyes are on Mississippi wide receiver Tre Harris. 

— RC