I made the decision last night not to bother going up to Oxford for the game—the idea of driving five hours and using $20 of gas to watch a three-hour game I could watch on TiVo-delay in the comfort of my apartment outweighed my desire to hang out in the Grove with past grad-school colleagues. As BigJim indicates, it didn’t start out all that well, but I think Ethan Flatt settled in and solidified himself as the starter, and the Rebels did pull out the win 26–23 in the first overtime (once Vanderbilt started actually playing like Vanderbilt normally does in the fourth quarter, instead of the halfway-decent play they showed in the first three). Micheal Spurlock probably didn’t help his cause by having a snap blow 20 yards past him in his only series under center.

The good news for the Rebels is that they next face Wyoming (in Laramie) and Arkansas State (at home), so there’s a reasonable chance they’ll be over .500 by the time SEC play starts up again. The bad news is that they’ll have to get one hell of a lot better to do much once the real teams start showing up on the schedule.

Update: More on this theme here.