Ole Miss Football: 3 takeaways from tough loss to Florida in opener

Florida came to town and Ole Miss football had upset on the mind, but the Rebels came just short. What’d we learn from this high-scoring affair?

Florida probably didn’t expect this type of battle from Ole Miss in the season opener, especially since the Rebels are in rebuild mode under new head coach Lane Kiffin, but the Gators were facing pressure in the fourth quarter before pulling away with a win.

The Rebels put up over 500 yards of total offense against a usually-stout Gator defense and Dan Mullen has some questions to answer on that side of the ball moving forward.

Both defenses were gashed all afternoon and if you were looking for a shootout, this was quite the show. It was also the first taste of a Kiffin offense in Oxford and fans have to be excited about the future.

What’d we learn from the loss to Florida?

3. DJ Durkin has his work cut out

Ole Miss defensive coordinator DJ Durkin knew he would have a tough job with trying to turn the Rebels around and making sure they have a pulse on that side of the ball. He probably didn’t know he was going to have this far to go.

The Rebels couldn’t stop the Gators all afternoon long as Florida scored at least 10 points in each quarter and put up about 650 total yards of offense.

If you’re looking for the perfect example of Ole Miss’ defense having a long way to go, the third-down stop when the Rebels were down 44-29 in the fourth quarter with under 10 minutes left looked like a huge momentum-builder, but they were flagged for roughing the quarterback. You just can’t have mistakes like that against SEC foes.

Mental mistakes and poor play led to a nightmare afternoon for Durkin.