Rebels survive Liberty, basketball season starts tomorrow
The full Dannis Jackson experience, a sack fest, a struggling running game, a quick look at the basketball team and GameDay coming to Oxford
Hope everyone is having a good Monday. We’ve got a new podcast out with former Ole Miss recruiting specialist Weldon Rotenberg reacting to Ole Miss’s 27-14 win over Liberty including the full Dannis Jackson experience, John Rhy Plumlee having a good day, what to do about a struggling running game, mean tweets and more. Check that out here or anywhere you get your podcasts.
We’ve got a ton of football to dive into today.
Rebels survive Liberty despite lethargic second half
Well, the second half wasn’t pretty. But in the end, Ole Miss came out of it with a double-digit win and avoided potential disaster. With the injury issues this offense is battling and a potential first-round pick playing quarterback for the opponent, it could’ve gone a hell of a lot worse and, overall, it was mission accomplished. Here are a few thoughts.
We got the full Dannis Jackson experience.
Ole Miss didn’t have Jonathan Mingo or Dontario Drummond in this game. Braylon Sanders played 23 snaps and wasn’t close to healthy. The result was Dannis Jackson and John Rhys Plumlee combining for 226 yards receiving. Jackson had six catches for 126 yards and a score in what was by far his best game in an Ole Miss uniform. Jackson is sort of the headliner for this younger group of receivers that have yet to develop into consistent, trustworthy options on Saturdays. Jackson took a step closer toward becoming just that in the win over Liberty. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch. There was a brutal drop early in the game and a potentially costly false-start late, but he played well overall. Jackson is a talented kid. You can tell the coaching staff knows that and so does Matt Corral.
For Jackson, it’s a matter of knowing what to do and where to go. Kiffin mentioned after the Auburn game that a lot of the younger receivers struggle with knowing where to line up and what to do. That remark mystified many. How does a player still not know what to do two years into this offense? I asked Weldon about this and he explained that this offense goes fast. It requires a lot of quick thinking and moving around. Processing information quickly is a must and that can be harder than it seems sometimes. Jackson (or any of the other receivers for that matter) isn’t dumb, he’s just struggled to pick things up in a timely manner. Some guys learn better through repetition and doing something over and over again as opposed to reading a set of instructions (in this case the playbook) and learning how to do something that way. Jackson hasn’t gotten a ton of game reps, which only compounds the issue. He got a lot on Saturday and you could tell he got more comfortable as the game wore on. It was good sign for Ole Miss. The Rebels need Drummond and Sanders to play against Texas A&M. The drop off is still pretty steep when those two aren’t healthy. But for Jackson, Saturday was a nice start and something he can build off of, if nothing else.
Plumlee was good, too.
He is still very much a work in progress but made a significant contribution that Ole Miss needed badly on Saturday. He hasn’t played receiver for very long and is still learning, but it’s evident that he can run some of the more simple route concepts and has good enough hands to suffice for now. His speed is a weapon and he’s had a base level of competence at the position for Ole Miss to use his speed somewhat effectively.
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Running game struggles are stalling drives
Ole Miss hasn’t scored a second half touchdown in two weeks. The Rebel have six combined points in the second half of their last two games. Why is that? Well, it is in part due to the team’s inability to consistently run the football. Ole Miss ran for 142 yards on 28 carries. Seventy of those came on the second play of the game via a Jerrion Ealy touchdown run. He led Ole Miss in carries and yards with 10 touches for 115. Snoop Conner wasn’t much of a factor in his seven carries for 19 yards and Henry Parrish only carried the ball three times. The way this trio of running backs is used on a week-to-week basis is still a little baffling to me. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to it, but I am not even sure that matters a whole hell of a lot and it is certainly not the root cause of the issue.
What is a core cause for the problem is how banged up the offensive line is. Ole Miss started Jalen Cunningham at right guard on Saturday. He’s spent the last four months playing defensive line after converting from offense to defense in fall camp. If that isn’t a sign of where this team is at from an injuries and depth standpoint then I do not know what is. Neither Bryce Ramsey nor Cedric Melton played. Jordan Rhodes played two snaps. I am not a doctor, but that leads me to believe all three were battling some sort of injury. How serious are he injuries? And how much of it was a precaution given the opponent? I am not sure, but the fact that an offensive lineman-turned-defensive lineman played all 58 snaps at right guard makes it difficult for the unit to function cohesively. The only guy lost for the year is Ben Brown, at least that we know of. So, to state the obvious, Ole Miss needs to get these three guys back for the Texas A&M game. The Aggies front seven might be the best the Rebels face all year, and with respect to Cunningham, Ole Miss just can’t have him out there and expect to run the ball well.
Anyway, back to the main point. The inability to consistently run the ball is making this offense rather benign. For as great as Matt Corral is, the running game is the gas that fuels this car, and it’s not a reliable form of transportation without it. It affects the ability to go up-tempo and steal another chunk play after a nice run. You’ve seen what I am talking about. How many times this year, when the offense is playing well, have you seen Ealy, Parrish or Conner pop off a productive run, get up and immediately hand the football to the official and sprint to get lined up again and the Rebels pop off another chunk play right after that as the defense is still scrambling to get lined up. That’s not really potent when the run is blown up in the backfield. It’s also turning 2nd and 5 into 2nd and 9 or 2nd and 12, which is putting the offense passing situations with a banged up receiving corps. The trickledown effect of this struggling running game is evident in many other areas of the offense. It also doesn’t help that Corral isn’t as prevalent of a threat in the running game due to his own injury status. That matters too.
I am not certain as to what the fix is. Getting healthy on the offensive line will help. But it’s the No. 1 thing Ole Miss needs to try to figure out in practice this week heading into this showdown with Texas A&M.
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The defense was a tale of two halves
Really, it was a tale of two drives. The defense was pretty good minus two third quarter drives. Ole Miss sacked Malik Willis nine times.
“NINE TIMES,” Principal Edward R. Rooney said.
Liberty couldn’t block Ole Miss. The right tackle might be considering retirement after what he endured. It was clear D.J. Durkin knew this coming in and the Rebels feasted upon inferior talent. Sam Williams broke the single-season sack record with three games to go. He’s now at 10.5 sacks on the year. Cedric Johnson was incredibly disruptive too. Those two are becoming a real threat as a pass rushing duo, which is something Ole Miss hasn’t had in at least six seasons.
Liberty moved the ball decently well between the 20s even in the first half but were bad in the red zone. Ole Miss did a good job being aggressive and consistently getting pressure early in the game because it disrupted everything Liberty was trying to do offensively. The second half wasn’t as dominant. The Flames scored on their first two possessions of the third quarter to keep the game hanging in the balance much longer than most of you reading would have preferred, but at the end of the day the defense made enough plays to keep this game from getting overly weird. The way Liberty ran the ball wasn’t an encouraging sign given the opponent Ole Miss welcomes this coming week. The Flames tallied 284 yards on the ground on 57 carries. Not ideal, but again, the whole bend but don’t break concept that this 3-2-6 is built upon worked for the most part.
The Rebels are going to have their hands full next week. Texas A&M is going to run for a lot of yards on Ole Miss. I don’t really envision a scenario in which the Aggies don’t. It’s going to come down to how this defense fares near the red zone and how many potential touchdowns they turn into field goals or turnovers. Of course Durkin would like to be in a better position to stop the run, but, and this is just my opinion, this defense just sort of is what it is until it gets better players up front and builds more depth. That may be overly harsh but it isn’t intended to be. The pass rush is real, and if Ole Miss can get Zach Calzada in obvious passing situations and force him to make a few throws to win the game, then that pass rush will be one hell of a weapon. But the defense has to be decent enough against the run to force those situations.
Final thoughts:
Weird game, right? This game reached the precipice of both the best and worst scenarios for Ole Miss. Leading 24-0 at the half, had the Rebels gotten one more stop to open the third quarter and mustered another touchdown, they might have been able to rest some guys up 31-0. On the flip side, Liberty had the ball in the third quarter with the chance to make it a 27-21 game, which would’ve made for a stomach-churning final 15 minutes for many of you. Neither scenario happened and Ole Miss got out of there with an ugly but fairly comfortable win.
What about Tweetgate?
I just made up that name. No one else is calling it that. I don’t want to spend a ton of time on this, but if you have been living under a rock and don’t know what I am talking about, the Ole Miss football twitter account fired off a pair of snarky tweets making fun of Hugh Freeze toward the end of the game.
The first one is making fun of the infamous compliance tweet from 2013 that ended up being, well, lacking in self-awareness, to put it mildly.
Anyway, the tweets drew the ire of Hugh Freeze supporters and the always insufferable faction of the national college football media. Noted Hugh Freeze defender Dan Wolken even called it “utterly classless.” Snarky tweets from team accounts are usually a great way to identify people who take themselves too seriously, like said national media members who think a blue checkmark by their twitter name —that they earned by filling out an application that took five seconds nearly a decade ago— means their opinion on anything and everything has a lick of value.
As insufferable as the pearl clutching may have seemed, there was some merit to the sentiment some shared regarding the tweets being petty and stupid. It did lack self awareness. Ole Miss enabled Hugh Freeze to become the problem that he became. The University bungled the NCAA investigation at every turn and shot itself in the foot at every single opportunity. Freeze embarrassed Ole Miss, but Ole Miss played a role in him doing that and embarrassed itself in many other ways (hello, weird hostage video). But in all likelihood, the person who made the tweets wasn’t around during the Freeze era and likely didn’t think that deeply about it. It’s Twitter. Who cares. It was funny. What did you think was going to happen when you tweeted that? Either don’t put them out at all or leave them up and own the trolling.
What made it even more unnecessary was Ole Miss issuing an apology to Chris Low. Really? Apologizing for a tweet about a tweet regarding NCAA recruiting violations is peak Ole Miss. Let’s create problems that don’t exist because… why?
Anyway, I have already spent too much time and space on this already. What a melodramatic situation that could’ve been avoided entirely.
A look around the SEC
It really was a crazy slate of games with good finishes and bizarre results. Let’s take a look at them.
Georgia beat Missouri 43-6 - I didn’t watch this game but I was told Missouri put its field goal kicker on the field with a few minutes left trailing 43-3. The kid made the kick to apparently cover the Tigers’ first point spread of the year. What a hilariously on-brand move for college football coaches in general.
Texas A&M beat Auburn 20-3 - The Aggies are playing good football. That defense is real and it forced Bo Nix to win the game with his arm. He was unable to do that.
Arkansas beat Mississippi State 31-28 - This was the wildest game of the weekend. The back-and-forth final seven minutes was a treat. Mike Leach benched his kicker Brandon Ruiz after two missed kicks and sent a back-up kicker out to try to hit a 40-yard attempt to send the game into over time. It missed, Arkansas won and Leach declared he is going to have open tryouts at kicker. What a wild time. Arkansas ended up on the right side of a coin flip game. This didn’t change my opinion much on Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are playing much better football and just made too many special teams gaffes to win this one. They will be a handful for Auburn and Ole Miss down the stretch.
South Carolina throttled Florida 40-17 - Is this the most shocking result of the year in the SEC? It later came out that Florida had a flu outbreak, including quarterback Emory Jones, who played in place of newly-minted starter Anthony Richardson who apparently got hurt dancing in the team hotel? Dan Mullen has a mess on his hands. He fired defensive coordinator Todd Grantham John Hevesy after the game, which makes me think he will get another year to turn this thing around, but this situation feels like it is only going to get worse. Woof.
Alabama beat LSU 20-14. Credit to LSU for showing up and playing with effort. If the Tigers had a competent offensive coordinator, they might have actually won this game. LSU stifled Alabama’s running game and the Tide looked pedestrian as a result. What a weird game this was. Alabama survived but looks like one of the more flawed Saban teams of the last seven or eight years.
Tennessee won 45-42 at Kentucky - If Josh Heupel can get around this NCAA mess his predecessor created, the Vols may be a problem in the SEC East. He’s a great play caller and offensive mind and Hendon Hooker has been a revelation for this team. Kentucky was a top-12 team a week ago, but in actuality, wouldn’t the Wildcats finish last in the West if they switched divsions? The quarterback play has regressed and their two biggest wins — LSU and Florida — don’t look very mighty anymore. The Cats were a bit overrated I guess. I am guilty of that. I was high on them.
Ole Miss Hoops opens the season tomorrow
The Rebels play University of New Orleans at The Pavilion at 6:30 tomorrow night. Kermit Davis has once again reshaped this roster via the portal and a couple of incoming freshmen. I am not falling for the annual preseason ‘this is a tournament team on paper’ thing we’ve all been duped by the last three years. There is talent on the roster. I am curious to see if Jarkell Joiner has made a leap as a scorer. He showed hints of that toward the end of last season in the final 10 games. How much better is Matthew Murrell? Can Miami transfer Nysier Brooks offer anything on the offensive end and how real his his rim protecting prowess?
On paper, it seems like this team may struggle yet again to find consistent perimeter shooting. That’s a problem in a deep SEC. The case for it is that Joiner has improved in this department, Murrell is more confident than a year ago and Jaemyn Brakefield is able to shoot well enough to stretch the floor at the four spot.
I don’t have a whole lot of analysis yet that wouldn’t be completely blowing smoke up your ass. I would like to see this team play for a week or two. Everyone seems pretty high on true freshman Daeshun Ruffin and people around the program seem to think Joiner has improved greatly as a ball handler and scorer. This team will be interesting to watch for a month or two. I have no idea how good it will be.
On the horizon
A&M preview
Bracken Ray and I are going to do a hoops segment for the Wednesday pod after tomorrow’s game ends
Friday picks and a game preview with Weldon
Football, basketball and golf in the newsletters this week.
That is all from me today. Thanks for being a loyal subscriber. Send to your friends and tell them to join in on the fun by smashing subscribe below. It is free.