Fake punt sunk Rebels' chances

OXFORD, Miss. — It was fourth down, 11 yards to go, 67 yards to glory.

Mississippi coach Ed Orgeron figured it was his team's last chance.

So did Urban Meyer.

“I know that coach and I knew he wasn't going to punt,” Meyer said. “He was going to try and go win the game.”

So when Ole Miss lined up in a funky punt formation with the entire offensive line to the right of the center, Florida called a timeout. It was stretched to a two-minute timeout by television.

“I want to thank CBS, whoever did the game for that timeout,” Meyer said.

It was Lincoln Financial, coach.

And the long timeout gave Florida time to come up with a defense.

Sure enough, Mississippi punter Justin Sparks rolled to his right as if to launch a rugby-style punt, then pulled up and instead drifted a pass to tight end Robert Lane. Florida's defense was there and even though strong safety Tony Joiner missed the tackle, defensive end Jermaine Cunningham was there to clean up the mess.

Ole Miss gained eight yards on the play, but the ball went to Florida on downs.

The play was pivotal in allowing Florida to hold on for a 30-24 win. The Gators were able to run out the clock and finish the game.

And there is sure to be some second-guessing of Orgeron for calling the fake punt when Florida was obviously aware of what was about to happen.

But when you have the ball and a touchdown will beat the defending champions and there is 3:09 to play and your defense hasn't stopped the Gators all day, well, you pull out the stops.

“It was a play where you check with the coaches at the line of scrimmage,” Orgeron said. “It was geared to be a fake punt or go ahead and punt it if we don't have the numbers on that side of the ball. We had the numbers. We just didn't make the play.”

Ole Miss made a lot of other plays on Saturday, slicing up the Gator defense for 390 yards despite the fact that quarterback Seth Adams practiced very little this week because of a sore shoulder. He threw for 310 yards and two touchdowns.

“He is a gamer,” Orgeron said. “He has the toughness you look for. He had a smile on his face out there. He's turned out to be a really good quarterback for us. I'm really proud of him. He's a great leader.”

Rather than the fake punt, letting Adams try to hit a pass on fourth down might have been a better option.

“We just didn't get it done,” Orgeron said.

“We showed them what we have,” said defensive lineman Greg Hardy.

Which, in the end, was one play short of being enough.