Masoli piles up yards in defeat

— Ole Miss quarterback Jeremiah Masoli said he has to shoulder a little more responsibility with a young supporting cast.

In the second half against Arkansas, Masoli nearly carried the Rebels to an upset victory Saturday before Ole Miss fell 38-24 to the Razorbacks at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.

Masoli had 322 yards of total offense and threw three touchdown passes in the second half after the Razorbacks held the senior to 103 yards in the first half.

“It was just some secondhalf adjustments,” Masoli said. “They were trying to pack the box, so our receivers naturally wanted the ball. We started to feed them.”

Masoli has emerged as the Rebels’ team leader after transferring to Ole Miss this past summer after being kicked off the Oregon team following some legal problems. Ole Miss Coach Houston Nutt said he has never seen a transfer player become such a great teammate and team player in such a short period of time.

“I kid him all the time, ‘Are you sure you’re the same guy who got in trouble out there?’” Nutt said. “I don’t see it. He has excellent character, a tremendous attitude, a realwinner.”

Masoli’s winning attitude hasn’t translated into a winning season for the Rebels, who fell to 3-4 overall, 1-3 in the SEC.

Masoli completed 21 of36 passes for 327 yards and 3 touchdowns with no interceptions Saturday. He also rushed for 98 yards on 15 carries.

“Jeremiah was very good,” Nutt said. “He gives us a chance, especially with a young offensive line.”

Ole Miss wanted to run the ball early to set up the pass, but Nutt said the Rebels couldn’t sustain drives long enough to use the entire offensive game plan. In the second half, despite two lightning delays, Ole Miss opened up its offense and began to carve out big chunks of yards against the Arkansas defense.

“We were going to do that earlier but there were too many three-and-outs,” Nutt said. “Probably should have done it more on first down. That was the same game plan the second half as it was the first half. We just didn’t start quick enough.”

“We were trying to establish our run game a little more in the first half and we weren’t able to do that,” Masoli said. “It wasn’t working too well. We had a lot of drive killers.”

The Rebels finished with 512 yards on 78 plays. Ole Miss ran 22 more offensive plays and gained 48 more yards than the Razorbacks.

Arkansas stayed ahead thanks to a 97-yard punt return by Joe Adams and a 71-yard run by Knile Davis. Ole Miss had a couple of misfires, most notably two fumbles in Arkansas’ territory, including one by Brandon Bolden inside the Arkansas 5 late in the game.

“We just have to be more consistent,” Ole Miss co-offensive coordinator Mike Markuson said. “We looked like a real club at different points in time. At different points, we’d just shoot ourselves in the foot. We looked really good and then we looked real bad.

“It’s unfortunate because coming in here we felt we could come and get this one. The way we played at times, you would have thought that way.”

Masoli said the team just has to get over this loss and focus on getting back to winning. To do that, the Rebels will have to turn their big yardage totals into winning point totals.

“It’s very frustrating, that’s one word that describes [Saturday],” Masoli said. “We left so many yards out there. We have over 500 yards of total offense and we’re still only scoring 24 points. There’s something wrong somewhere.”

Arkansas defenders can vouch that it’s not at quarterback.

Sports, Pages 36 on 10/24/2010

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