Sports

OXFORD, Miss. — After dropping the first two games of the 2011 season, the Georgia Bulldogs improved to 2-2 (1-1 SEC) with a 27-13 win over Ole Miss. This is the Bulldogs ninth straight victory over the Rebels in the series.

“That was an outstanding victory for Georgia football,” said head coach Mark Richt. “We did really big things on both sides of the ball.”

Everything but the scoreboard showed that the Bulldogs dominated this game.

Defensively, Todd Grantham’s unit dominated the Rebels offense. The defense gave up a total of eight first downs and 183 yards on 56 plays. Junior ILB Mike Gilliard led the Bulldog defense with seven tackles while freshman ILB Amarlo Herrera added six.

Overall, this was one of the best defensive games that Georgia has ever had under defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. Coming into today the Bulldogs have only had one sack, but finished with four today.

The Rebels scored 13 points, but 6 of them came on a punt return. The lone touchdown the defense scored came in the second quarter as Ole Miss cut the Georgia lead to 17-7.

Junior FS Bacarri Rambo recorded his team-leading third interception late in the second quarter.

Just like the Georgia defense, the Bulldog offense dominated the game as well, but only managed 27 points.

Aaron Murray and the Bulldog offense held the ball for 38 and a half minutes, and finished with a total of 475 yards on 82 plays.

Freshman RB Isaiah Crowell has a career day as he rushed for 147 yards on 30 carries, both career highs.

Murray finished the day 17-for-26 for 268 yards and two touchdowns and one interception.  Following his first touchdown pass to Charles, Murray connected with senior TE Aron White for a 35-yard touchdown pass at the 2:38 mark in the second quarter.

Even though the Bulldogs only scored three points in the second half, Murray was pleased with the performance of the offense.

“I think it was a great second half,” said Murray. We moved the ball pretty much every possession, going up and down the field. I think we looked great, both first and second half.”

Murray connected with former high school teammate Charles five times today for 59 yards and a touchdown.

“It always feels good to get a win, but we still have a lot of things to correct,” said Charles. “We’re going to celebrate the win, and then at 12:01 a.m., we’re going to start getting ready for Mississippi State.”

One area of struggle was the play of PK Walsh. The senior connected on his first and last field goals of the day, but missed three straight from 46, 48 and 35 yards. Walsh is now 5-10 this season.

Georgia finished the game going 8-for-18 on third down conversions while holding Ole Miss to

Other notes:

The attendance of today’s game was 58,042, the largest crowd of the year so far at Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium.

Captains: Georgia’s captains on Saturday were junior TE Orson Charles, redshirt sophomore QB Aaron Murray, senior DE Abry Jones and junior SS Shawn Williams.

Up Next: The Bulldogs (2-2, 1-1 SEC) return home to host Mississippi State (1-2, 0-2 SEC) in Sanford Stadium.  FOX Sports South will televise it at 12 p.m.