OXFORD — Ole Miss’ College Football Playoff hopes were in dire straights early Saturday.

Jaxson Dart injured an ankle on Ole Miss’ second play from scrimmage. One snap later, Dart was intercepted by Georgia’s Dan Jackson.

Dart limped off the field and headed to the Ole Miss locker room. Georgia, meanwhile, drove 21 yards in seven plays to take a quick 7-0 lead.

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium was silenced.

Enter Austin Simmons.

The Rebels’ backup quarterback, who had only played in mop-up roles in the season’s first nine games, directed a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to let Ole Miss tie the score at 7-7, eliminate any panic that might have been building and reinvigorated the largest crowd in stadium history.

Simmons was 5-for-6 passing, good for 64 yards, on the drive, one that culminated with Ulysses Bentley IV’s 9-yard touchdown run with 6:53 left in the first quarter. He spread the football around, hitting Juice Wells, Dae’Quan Wright, Jordan Watkins and Cayden Lee (twice) to keep the ball moving downfield, exciting the crowd more and more with each completion.

Dart returned for Ole Miss’ next possession and played like the NFL prospect he is, leading the 16th-ranked Rebels to a huge 28-10 win over the second-ranked Bulldogs, but Simmons’ effort drew plenty of praise afterwards.

“He did a great job,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said. “I didn’t know Jaxson was going to come back in. It didn’t look good to me the way he limped off. I could see him on the (interception) try to throw, try to move and I kind of thought he was done. I talked to Austin right away before we even went on defense. From what I saw, it looked really bad. He could barely get to the sideline. I said, ‘Get ready. Go warm up. We’re going to run the same calls with you.’ It kind of shows our confidence in him, first play, to run naked bootleg and let him throw on the first play against Georgia.

“The guy’s done a great job in practice and it showed up today.”

Dart said Simmons' drive "really changed the momentum of the game."

"I'm so proud of him," Dart said. "He's a helluva player. Him just being able to come in and manufacture a drive like that, one that resulted in a touchdown, was huge. It really provided a spark for our team."

“I told him after the game I was proud of him,” Ole Miss linebacker Pooh Paul. “It was awesome for him to go in there and show what he can do."

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Offense missing key contributors: For the third consecutive week, Ole Miss was without wide receiver Tre Harris. Harris was upgraded on the Rebels’ injury report late in the week, but he did not warm up Saturday. With Harris out, Ole Miss went with Watkins, Lee and Wells at wide receiver.

Wright started at tight end, though Caden Prieskorn played a bigger role against Georgia than he did a week ago at Arkansas.

For the second consecutive week, Jayden Williams went through warm-ups, but Williams didn’t play. Instead, Ole Miss went with an offensive line of Diego Pounds, Nate Kalepo, Reece McIntyre, Gerquan Scott and Micah Pettus.

Ulysses Bentley IV drew the start at running back with Henry Parrish Jr. out.

Running back rotation: With Parrish out, Bentley was Ole Miss’ primary ball-carrier. The Rebels also used Domonique Thomas and Rashod Amos in the running game.

Bentley rushed 13 times for 28 yards. Thomas rushed nine times for 24 yards. Amos had one carry for two yards.

Big kicks: Georgia was hoping to take one last shot at some offensive fireworks late in the first half Saturday. However, Ole Miss punter Fraser Masin boomed a missile off his foot, a 65-yarder that ate 13 seconds off the clock and convinced the Bulldogs to down the ball and head to halftime trailing, 16-7.

Masin punted twice Saturday for a 54-yard average.

Caden Davis, meanwhile, was 5-for-5 on field goal attempts, knocking down kicks of 23, 43, 53, 24 and 32 yards.

Captains: Ole Miss’ captains Saturday were tight end Caden Prieskorn, defensive tackle JJ Pegues and offensive lineman Nate Kalepo.

Miscellaneous: Former Ole Miss defensive back Mike Hilton, now a star with the Cincinnati Bengals, was the celebrity guest who “locked the Vaught” Saturday. …Former Ole Miss wide receiver DK Metcalf, now a star with the Seattle Seahawks, led the pregame Hotty Toddy. …Georgia won the coin toss in pregame and elected to defer its choice to the second half. …For the second consecutive home game, a squirrel caused a delay. Against Oklahoma last month, a squirrel “scored a touchdown” at the conclusion of a delay. On Saturday, the squirrel took the field from the north end zone area and scampered to the 20-yard-line before heading to the Georgia sideline.

Record-setting day: Saturday’s win over Georgia was Ole Miss’15th top-five win all-time. It was the first top-five win since 2015 (at #2 Alabama, 43-37) and the first top-five win at home since 2014 Egg Bowl vs. #4 Mississippi State (31-17).

It was the fifth top-five win at home: 2014: #1 Alabama (23-17); 2014: #4 Mississippi State (31-17); 1976: #4 Georgia (21-17); 1952: #3 Maryland (21-14) and the highest ranked win for the Rebels in Oxford since beating #1 Alabama in 2014 (23-17).

Saturday also marked the largest top-five victory since beating No. 3 Tennessee 38-0 in 1969.

Ole Miss joined Alabama as the only teams to defeat Georgia since 2021 … The last non-Alabama team to beat Georgia in the regular season was Florida in 2020.

Ole Miss has now accounted for two of Georgia head coach Kirby Smart’s 18 career losses … Smart and the Bulldogs fell 45-14 to the Rebels in Oxford in 2015, the first loss of Smart’s career and still the largest margin of defeat in his career.

Saturday also marked the largest margin of defeat for Georgia since the 2019 SEC Championship vs. LSU (37-10) and the largest in the regular season since 2018 vs. LSU (36-16).

Saturday was also Ole Miss’ highest ranked win ever against Georgia, the previous best being Ole Miss’ last victory in the series over the 11th-ranked Bulldogs in Oxford in 2016.