Ole Miss Football: 3 takeaways from tough Sugar Bowl loss to Baylor

1. It was a tale of two halves for Luke Altmyer

While there’s so much to say about how Ole Miss ended its 2021 season, you can’t really blame anyone for the loss, it was just tough luck with Matt Corral going down.

When you prepare for weeks assuming that one guy is going to be leading your offense and he departs in the first half, there’s usually a major adjustment period. For Luke Altmyer and the Ole Miss offense, that adjustment period lasted until halftime as they went into the locker room with zero points, training 7-0.

The freshman and former four-star quarterback came out with more confidence in the second half and threw an impressive touchdown pass in the third quarter to tie the game up at 7-7.

There was a stretch where he was 6-for-6 with over 100 yards and a touchdown in the second half which followed up a tough 6-for-13 for 38 yards and an interception start to the game.

It was good to see Altmyer show some toughness and bounce back from a horrid start to finish the game strong outside of a game-sealing pick in the fourth quarter. He played well and didn’t look too rattled after a shaky start which is all you can ask for. He couldn’t help that his offensive line was struggling to hold up against an aggressive Baylor front which had 10 sacks.

These were some great reps for Altmyer and Lane Kiffin has to use that as a little victory here.