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Tuesday, September 21 Updated: September 27, 11:06 AM ET Wade's World: Moving on |
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(Editor's note: Ole Miss offensive lineman Todd Wade will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season. For more on Ole Miss sports, visit the official Mississippi site.) Sept. 22, 1999 I guess to a TV viewer it (Ole Miss' 37-34 loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday) was a pretty good college football game. But for me, it was probably the most disappointing time I've had since I've been at Ole Miss, except for how we've lost to Alabama the last two years.
It was a horrible way to end a game (Vanderbilt tied the score with a touchdown with 49 seconds to play and then won the game in overtime), but a lot of people on our team gave it their all. We'll rebound from this loss. We've learned a lot already from this past game. We feel we have to have this Auburn game now. Thankfully, Vanderbilt is not in the (SEC) West, so it's something that doesn't necessarily hurt us in the West race. It does hurt our overall record and erases our possibility of going undefeated, but there are other things to look forward to, and now we're getting ready to focus on Auburn. Offensively we did well at times, and at other times we didn't. We've got to keep improving. Our offense needs to pick up a sense of urgency this week. We haven't had the killer instinct that we've needed. As for the Auburn game, I don't think a lot of guys are thinking about the coaching staff change (former Ole Miss coach Tommy Tuberville is in his first season at Auburn after Terry Bowden resigned midway through the 1998 season) or the coaches at Auburn. It's more or less like this is Auburn and we haven't done well against them in the past. The Tigers are a Western Division team, and there would be nothing better than for us to beat them and erase last week's game in our minds. This week is all about preparing for Auburn, and I expect everybody to have total intensity and focus for this game. We want to be as prepared as possible and not have anything like last Saturday happen again. |
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