OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — Jaxson Dart threw for 311 yards, No. 18 Mississippi's defense produced nine sacks and the Rebels used a big third quarter to beat Oklahoma 26-14 on Saturday.
The Sooners were up 14-10 at the half before the Rebels (6-2, 2-2 Southeastern Conference) scored two touchdowns in the third quarter behind Dart and tight end Caden Prieskorn, who had five catches for 71 yards. Oklahoma (4-4, 1-4), in its first game since last Sunday’s firing of offensive coordinator Seth Littrell, was productive in the run game in the first half but struggled out of the gate on the back end. The Sooners did not cross the 50 in the second half until the middle of the fourth quarter.
That drive reached the Ole Miss 13 but ended with three-straight sacks of quarterback Jackson Arnold and a turnover on downs. Arnold, the Sooners' starting quarterback, at the beginning of the season, made his first start since being benched in favor of freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. in Week 5.
With Littrell out, play-calling duties were handled by Joe Jon Finley, who was tight ends coach at Ole Miss in 2020, Lane Kiffin’s first season with the Rebels. Dart’s 24-yard pass to Prieskorn and a 1-yard run by defensive lineman and short-yardage specialist JJ Pegues, both in the third quarter, were the scores that made the difference. The Rebels were without injured star Tre Harris, who came in as the nation's leading receiver.
“We told them before once Tre wasn’t going that, ‘Hey, this needed to b.