It’s tough enough to win at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge when you’re battling against head coach Les Miles and his LSU Tigers and it’s even tougher when you start to battle against yourself.
That’s exactly what the Ole Miss Rebels did in the final seconds of Saturday night’s 10-7 loss to LSU. With only nine seconds remaining and a chance to tie the game at 10 with a 48 yard field goals, Rebels head coach Hugh Freeze elected to run another play that eventually resulted in disaster. Quarterback Bo Wallace threw an interception down near the goal line and the Rebels’ season changed in a heartbeat.
No longer undefeated.
No longer in the driver’s seat to reach the four-team playoff.
But the question is, what really happened in those final seconds? After the game, coach Freeze offered an explanation as to his thought process.
“I think Bo would tell you, I thought we were pretty clear we were either going to take the flat throw or throw it out of bounds and try the field goal,” Freeze said. “He must have felt like he had a shot at the touchdown play there, the clear-out guy. But no, I wish I could do that over for sure.”
Photo source: Instagram
This explanation surely makes sense. Wallace has done a lot of good things as the Rebels quarterback. But unfortunately, this may be the play he is forever remembered for.
The sloppy final sequence actually began seconds before when the Rebels lined up for a 42-yard field goal attempt to tie the game. But before freshman kicker Gary Wunderlich could actually attempt the kick, Ole Miss was penalized for delay of game.
After the game, Freeze seemed to indicate that the officiating crew may have mishandled LSU’s substitutions during the final sequence.
“After the penalty, which I’m going to have to watch the film, they stood over the ball and I thought they had 12 men on the field for a long time,” Freeze said. “And then we get the penalty, pushed it back to I think 48 yards from the right hash which is not [Wunderlich's] favorite deal.”
Even after the delay of game, the Rebels lined up for the game-tying field goal. Miles called a timeout to ice Wunderlich and that’s when Freeze removed the kicking team from the field and reinserted Wallace and the offense.
After the game, Miles was clearly concerned that his decision to call timeout might actually do more harm than good. Especially when he saw Freeze trot the offense back on the field.
“It made me nervous as hell because I’m sitting there going, ‘Well, if he tries a three-pointer, that’s certainly a tie and we’re going into overtime. Certainly if he tries something else, that could be another ending’ and one that we’d all be miserable about right now,” Miles said.
But that didn’t happen. On the play that originated at the LSU 30-yard line, Wallace lined up in the shotgun, took the snap from center and sprinted to his left. Instead of throwing the ball to Laquon Treadwell in the flat at around the 23, he threw a deep ball down the sideline towards the end zone. Wallace was trying to hit Cody Core but underthrew him as safety Ronald Martin cut in front of him for the game-clinching interception.
Replays show that while Wallace was sprinting to his left, Freeze could be seen pointing to Treadwell in the flat to help guide his quarterback. Then TV showed Freeze cringe in agony as the play horribly unfolded.
“I told him to sprint out and either take the flat throw right now or throw it out of bounds,” Freeze said. “Still, worst case, you’re still at the same point. We were trying to get it to the left hash for him or left-middle. We just didn’t get it done there.”
After the game, Wallace, who was on the verge of tears, did not want to talk about it with reporters.
“I’m not going to talk about it. One-on-one, threw it up — [it's] done,” Wallace said.
He didn’t really need to offer an explanation. He simply tried to be a hero for Ole Miss but it backfired… significantly.