Georgia Southern takes a step forward against Ole Miss

If you would have told me this morning that the Georgia Southern Eagles would rush for 287 yards and lose to Ole Miss by only 10 points, I would have been ecstatic.

But the switch in offensive play calling from Rance Gillespie to David Dean seems to have sparked some life in the Eagles offense. Matt Breida looked like his old self in Oxford, rushing for 100 yards for the first time this season and ripping off a long 68-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.

The entire team was firing on all cylinders in the first quarter, with Kevin Ellison throwing a touchdown pass to Myles Campbell and running for a touchdown to put his team up 14-3 through a quarter of play.

If Ellison could have remained healthy for the entirety of the game, we could be looking at a different result.

Campbell was extremely explosive for the Eagles, hauling in four catches for 121 yards and a score, while making Rebels defenders miss in space.

Although the Eagles played well for the first half, the defense has still shown an inability to stay on opposing receivers, with the Rebels’ wideouts regularly making catches in front of Southern’s secondary.

But corner Darius Jones made an incredible play to rip the ball out of the hands of a Rebel receiver with 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately Georgia Southern couldn’t make the comeback a reality.

If the team had played like this all season, we would be looking at a more successful season. That’s how well I thought the team played today.

Hopefully GS continues to build off of the momentum established, and uses it to win at least two more games and become bowl eligible.

With a game this Thursday against UL-Lafayette and the following Saturday against Georgia State, I think this game could be the turning point in a Georgia Southern season that looked to be over at this point last week.