Ole Miss vs. Arkansas: Score and Twitter Reaction

In a wild back-and-forth battle, the Arkansas Razorbacks were able to secure a come-from-behind 34-30 victory against the Ole Miss Rebels for their first SEC win of the year. 

The Razorbacks, despite entering Saturday ranked 22nd in the Associated Press and coaches' poll, had lost their first two conference games. Those defeats can be excused since they came against Alabama and Texas A&M. 

Ole Miss rebounded nicely after that season-opening collapse against Florida State, with a tight 48-43 loss against Alabama being the Rebels' lone blemish on their resume since. 

The offenses got off to quick starts. Arkansas opened the scoring when Austin Allen hit Dominique Reed for a 51-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead. 

Allen was marvelous for Arkansas in this game. The junior quarterback finished 19-of-32 for 229 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. He is also earning plaudits for hanging in there with an offensive line that often struggles to protect him, per ESPN's Peter Burns:

Offense has not been a problem for the Razorbacks so far this season, as David Bazzel of KATV 7 in Little Rock:

With Arkansas' defense struggling to get stops against Chad Kelly in the first half, Allen had to be on point to keep his team in the game. 

Rawleigh Williams III was hardly an afterthought in this contest. The Razorbacks running back picked apart the Rebels defensive line with 180 yards on 27 carries. 

After Mississippi scored to cut the deficit to 7-6, Williams set up Arkansas' second touchdown with a 53-yard run on the ensuing possession. Two plays later, Allen found Drew Morgan for a 13-yard score. 

Ole Miss did not go away without a fight. Kelly tied the score at 20 with less than two minutes remaining in the first half with an eight-yard touchdown run. He was erratic through the air, going 18-of-39 for 253 yards, one touchdown and one interception, and he added a team-high 89 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries. 

The SEC Network provided the GIF of Kelly faking out Arkansas defenders on that touchdown scamper:

Kelly had plenty of help from start tight end Evan Engram, who had his third 100-yard game of the season to go along with seven catches and one touchdown. 

Kyle Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution offered this brief synopsis of what Engram has done for the Rebels:

While this game appeared as if it would be a wild shootout after the two teams combined for 40 points in the first half, things slowed down in the third quarter.

Arkansas found the end zone with just over three minutes remaining in the third quarter when Allen hit Williams for a 27-20 lead. 

Allen did give Ole Miss life early in the fourth quarter when he threw his first interception of the game right into the hands of Marquis Haynes with the Rebels trailing 27-23. 

Kelly engineered a quick five-play scoring drive that was capped off with his second rushing touchdown from 17 yards out. 

Ben Garrett of Scout.com invoked the classic quote from Dumb and Dumber to describe the way Kelly turned his game around after throwing an interception on Mississippi's first drive of the second half:

The two teams would exchange punts on their drives after Ole Miss took the lead. Arkansas would put together a drive against Mississippi's defense late in the fourth quarter that included Allen converting a 4th-and-4 and 3rd-and-9 to keep things going for the offense. 

Williams got Arkansas down to the 6-yard line with less than three minutes to play. After the Rebels defense held on 1st-and-goal, the Razorbacks took a 34-30 lead on Jared Cornelius' touchdown run. 

There was still more than two minutes left on the clock, which would normally be plenty of time for these offenses to attack. Arkansas' defense stepped up huge on the drive by forcing Kelly to throw an incomplete pass, and Jeremiah Ledbetter sacked Kelly on third down to set up a 4th-and-11.  

After a false start penalty moved Mississippi back another five yards, Kelly nearly ran for the first down before getting hit right before the marker and fumbling the ball backward to seal the Arkansas win. 

The SEC Network captured the outpouring of adoration from fans Razorback Stadium after the win:

Both teams needed a win in this game to keep them up with the pack in the SEC West. Alabama and Texas A&M have separated themselves from the rest of the division, but the five other teams all had at least one loss in conference play. 

Mississippi was facing an uphill battle this season after losing so much talent from last year's club. The results have been mixed so far, but it's a testament to head coach Hugh Freeze and his staff that the Rebels' three losses have come by a combined 20 points. 

With a little more experience and fewer mistakes in crunch time, Ole Miss will be back among the elite programs in the nation. 

Arkansas has made incremental improvements the previous two seasons, with its eight wins in 2015 being the program's most since 2011. This win is yet another indication that head coach Bret Bielema is still moving the Razorbacks forward.

Post-Game Reaction

It doesn't get much better for Bielema and his team as the Razorbacks look poised to climb back up the rankings, via Trent Shadid of SECCountry.com: "This is a really good performance for our football team and Razorback people in general."

He was also very happy with his running game, which was led by Williams, via Shadid: "We knew we had to run the football. For us to play our formula we’ve got to have both (running and passing) working."

Even he reaffirmed the notion that life is better when you're winning, especially in one of the toughest conferences in college football, via Kyle Deckelbaum of KATV:

But there isn't too much time to revel in the victory as another tough test in No. 23 Auburn awaits on Oct. 22.