Hope everyone is having a good Friday. We have a new podcast out with Weldon Rotenberg offering some final thoughts on this Ole Miss-Texas A&M matchup plus some Friday picks with LBs Greg. Check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts.
We’ll offer some final thoughts here too and then take a look around the SEC.
This is a tough matchup for Ole Miss
This will be the best defense Ole Miss has played this season. That includes Alabama. Texas A&M is second in the conference in points allowed, meaning the Aggies are good in the red zone. They don’t allow a lot of touchdowns, and for an Ole Miss offense that hasn’t been very good down near the red zone — and has struggled to run the football with consistency each of the last two games — that’s a pretty daunting challenge for the Rebels.
On the other side of the football, A&M has rushed for 215 yards or more in each of its last three games. An offensive line that started three freshmen to begin the year is beginning to gel. A freshman in September isn’t that much of a freshman anymore in November. Couple that with the fact that it’s a five-star and two four-star recruits we’re talking about here and it’s not like the offensive line was incredibly weak to begin with — it just had some tough moments early on in the season.
The point is that this will be a massive challenge for Ole Miss. Who’s available to play on offense? There’s some cautious optimism regarding the receiving corps and the availability of the trio of injured wide receivers, but who really knows. I’ll believe that Jonathan Mingo is fully healthy when I see it. It just doesn’t seem realistic given the timeline of his surgery and when he suffered the foot injury. If Dontario Drummond and Braylon Sanders can play, then the Rebels will have a much better shot. But Sanders didn’t seem close to 100 percent last week in the 23 snaps he played and Drummond didn’t play at all.
And then there’s the running game that has struggled the last two weeks. The injuries on the interior offensive line finally seemed to have caught up with them and the way the running backs are used on a weekly basis is a bit of a head-scratcher (not that it’s really a symptom of the issue, it just makes the situation more complicated).
If I haven’t thoroughly depressed you yet, then you might like the next point. I don't mean to make this sound like the Mean Machine going up against the Prison Guards team, but it is a bit of a mismatch. What this is an opportunity for is for Lane Kiffin and Jeff Lebby to showcase why they’re possibly the best duo in the country at this whole offensive playcalling and schematics business. These two teams feature two contrasting styles of football and if Ole Miss pulls this thing off, it will be a reflection of just how good Kiffin and Lebby are at their respective jobs. I mean, the line has floated between a point and two-and-a-half points. It’s not like Ole Miss is some gigantic underdog, I just think the contrasting styles, coupled with the injuries, make the Rebels’ path to victory a bit slimmer than A&M’s is.
Texas A&M has also yet to go on the road in a hostile environment. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium isn’t Bryant-Denny, but it’s a Saturday night game on a national stage and the seats will be packed to the gills with liquor and testosterone. It’ll be a little different than the Aggies’ trips to Denver (they played Colorado at the Broncos stadium) and Columbia, Missouri. Zach Calzada has a huge arm but has struggled with accuracy. Texas A&M is going to run for a lot of yards in this game. But if this 3-2-6 can prevent from breaking down near the red zone and the Rebels can put A&M in enough passing situations, I am not certain Calzada can make enough difficult throws to win this game for the Aggies.
It’s a fascinating matchup. I picked A&M in Neal’s picks. Check that out here it’s a fun read and then you should subscribe to Rebel Grove because it is worth its weight in gold.
I hope for your sake that I am wrong on my pick and I wouldn’t be stunned at all if I was. If Ole Miss wins, it is on the doorstep of a 10-2 season, an access browl and becomes even more of a nationally relevant program than it is already becoming and its rise looks even more meteoric. It’s a huge game. Enjoy it. It’s been a while since Ole Miss played in multiple of these in a season. Savor it, regardless of the result. Because it hasn’t always been this way and it won’t be like this forever.
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Four questions I’ll ponder walking into the stadium
I’m headed back to attend this. I’m looking forward to seeing some friends and enjoying the game. Here are a couple of things I’ll be thinking about heading into the stadium.
Does this flask in my pants make it look like I took a gas station supplement? I am kidding, sort of. Real questions are below.
How real is this Ole Miss pass rush? We’ve seen Sam Williams and Cedric Johnson grow into a pretty formidable duo this year. I think D.J. Durkin will be pretty aggressive in blitzing on passing downs. I am not sure he has much other choice. Ole Miss has been great about not letting opponents beat them with the deep ball and has not allowed very many large chunk plays in the passing game. Part of that is due to the conservative nature of how they blitzed before Jake Springer’s return. But if Ole Miss can get pressure bringing just four or five guys and flush Calzada out of the pocket, I don’t think he will have a good day throwing the ball. He is pretty consistent with the easy throws. Making it slightly more difficult on him is when you see a different quarterback.
Does Snoop Conner have a Snoop Conner-esque game? I singled out Conner because he’s usually a pretty good indicator of how Ole Miss is blocking on the interior. It’s not a coincidence that he ran it seven times for 19 yards last week and the running game suffered as a whole. Ole Miss can carve out some yardage on scheme alone for Jerrion Ealy and Henry Parrish, and while this isn’t as nearly as black and white as I am making it sound, I think a good Snoop Conner game means Ole Miss wore A&M down with tempo and fared better between the tackles than I thought they would.
What’s plan B on offense? Kiffin and Lebby are good about adjusting when their initial plan sputters. Look at the LSU and Tennesse games. If Ole Miss struggles early on offense, I am curious to see what they do differently and what that looks like. Dynamite analysis incoming: Ole Miss getting up 14-3 — or something similar to that — early in the game would be massive for the Rebels. Texas A&M loves to play ball control and time of possession. It’s the opposite of Ole Miss using tempo to go fast. These guys go slow. The Aggies panicked in their loss to Arkansas earlier this year after they fell behind early. They stopped running the football when they very much still could have with the success they were having, and it worked to their detriment.
What’s Ole Miss’s plan B?
How much does Corral factor into the running game? Part of the reason Ole Miss has struggled running the ball lately is Corral not being healthy. Kiffin admitted as much this week. He hasn’t been a real threat to keep the ball on some option concepts and the opposing defense knew it. How much is Ole Miss willing to test it this week and utilize him? This, to me, could be a make or break thing for the Rebels in the red zone. And the red zone is largely going to determine this football game.
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A look around the SEC
I made picks already on Neal’s Picks. There’s no need to repeat it here. What I will do is offer a thought about each game and what interests me.
Kentucky at Vanderbilt - Does a basketball game break out between these two if they get bored playing football?
Mississippi State at Auburn - Mississippi State is better than their record. Do they have the same special teams gaffes that doomed them last week? Is a better version of Bo Nix going to emerge at home? This is a fascinating game to me.
Alabama at New Mexico State - Does Alabama cover a 50-point spread? Does it want to? Does Nick Saban complain about the crowd?
Georgia at Tennessee - this is the first real offense this Bulldogs defense has faced this season, as strange as that seems. I think Tennessee can’t put a slight dent in the ridiculous points per game number this Georgia defense currently boasts but I am not sure it’ll be enough to make the game close.
South Carolina at Missouri - One team has given up. The other is South Carolina, who is on the precipice of being bowl eligible — a remarkable feat for Shane Beamer given the roster he inherited.
Arkansas at LSU - It was admirable effort from LSU last week at Alabama. If they had a competent offensive coordinator they would have won the game. I am not sure how much is left in the tank after a deflating loss like that. There i a gigantic coaching mismatch in this game.
Samford at Florida - Dan Mullen is in hot water. He fired his two longest-tenured assistants this week, which tells me he probably sees next fall. But for as much as people critique his recruiting, being on the hot seat isn’t going to help him sell the product. Also, he’s just sort of an asshole. I onced asked someone who worked for Mullen if the previous sentence as true. Their response: “what do you mean ‘sort of?'” That isn’t a good recipe.
On the horizon
Weldon won’t be on the Sunday podcast. He will be in Las Vegas. I will record a bonus show, for the people, upon his return on Monday. We will have a Sunday pod though. I’ve got you covered there.
There will be much to discuss next week in both basketball and football.
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 the subscribe button below. It is free.