Hugh Kellenberger

The Clarion-Ledger

ATLANTA – This year's Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game was the kind of matchup where the wrong kind of game-specific records were being set in the first half alone and you didn't mind that the upper deck was empty.

That way, there were fewer witnesses.

Ole Miss' 35-13 win against Boise State on Thursday at the Georgia Dome, all ugliness aside, did count. The No. 18 Rebels can certainly walk away saying they're 1-0 on the season. But with nine days to go before Ole Miss walks into another NFL stadium, there's at least one serious question to be answered about this season.

Can Ole Miss win with Bo Wallace? Not just win but win in the kind of way it (and its fans) expects to?

Remember that this was supposed to be a new-and-improved Wallace, a level-headed leader with 6,340 career passing yards and a healthy shoulder. Earlier this week, he said the latter does not matter, because all he wanted was to be the first quarterback to lead Ole Miss to the SEC Championship game. He completed two-thirds of his passes for 386 yards and four touchdowns. That certainly sounds like an All-SEC quarterback performance.

But there were also the three interceptions in the first half, a series of plays that led SEC Network commentator Greg McElroy to tweet that Wallace had to stop predetermining his open man and go through his progressions. The interceptions are not a blip either: In 27 career starts, Wallace has thrown 30 interceptions. That's not a style of football that is going to win a lot of games in the SEC West.

"He's our guy," coach Hugh Freeze said. "... I don't know if he's pressing too hard with so much — how many times has the question been asked about Bo Wallace and what you expect of him? He wants to do so well and have such a great year."

Said offensive coordinator Dan Werner: "One of (the interceptions) I thought was a great decision, and the DB made a great play on it. We talked about it at halftime, how we could get it fixed and he did get it fixed."

It should be noted that Wallace was not entirely responsible for Ole Miss' first-half offensive ineptitude. The Rebels committed seven false start penalties in the first half alone. Three of those were assigned to left guard Aaron Morris, playing in his first game since tearing his ACL in the 2013 season-opener. Werner said after the game that the Boise State defensive line shouted "shift" every time they moved and the Ole Miss linemen were going on first sound and thought it was Wallace. The Rebels went to a silent snap count in the second half and had much better success.

The line as a whole struggled to block, particularly inside. Ole Miss' running backs often ran into the backs of the linemen or fruitlessly tried to bounce it outside, ending the night with 74 yards on 32 carries. Keep in mind — that 2.1 yards per carry average includes a 19-yard Mark Dodson touchdown in the final three minutes.

Boise State did the smart thing on obvious passing downs, often choosing to ignore left tackle Laremy Tunsil's side of the field and rush four against the other four linemen. Sometimes that still resulted in pressure, but even when it did not, there were still as many as seven players dropping into coverage.

All of what went wrong on Thursday proved to not matter, mostly because Boise State turned the ball even more and was generally listless. But Ole Miss cannot expect four interceptions every week or for the opposing defense to eventually wear down and let Wallace throw three fourth-quarter touchdowns.

And then it all comes back to Wallace. Ole Miss is good enough to win some weeks in spite of his inconsistency, but just how many victories can it expect with that strategy? Wallace does not have to be great, but the Bad Bo of Thursday's first half has to go away if the Rebels have any realistic chance of playing in Atlanta in December.

Contact Hugh Kellenberger at (601) 961-7291 or hkellenber@clarionledger.com. Follow @HKellenbergerCL on Twitter.