Sugar Bowl matchups and a thank you
Lebby and Durkin comments, game matchups and a reflecting on 2021
Hope everyone is having a good week. We have a podcast out with former Ole Miss recruiting specialist Weldon Rotenberg talking about the Charlie Weis Jr. hire, the Sugar Bowl matchup and much more. Check that out here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hopefully it makes your work day or your trip to New Orleans pass by a little faster.
We’ve got a lot of different things to cover today. Buckle up.
Rebels and Bears set to showdown in The Superdome
This will be the last newsletter before the game so I figured we’d get into the match up a bit. Here are five things I’ll be thinking about as I walk into the Superdome on Saturday evening (probably not literally as the top of mind concern will be beer selection, but you get the point of this exercise).
Will Ole Miss be able to handle Baylor’s defensive line? The strength of the Bears defense is undoubtedly their down linemen. They have two or three guys that are very difficult to block. This is a team that ranked second in the Big 12 in sacks. If Baylor is able to stifle Ole Miss offensively, I think it is because they are able to pressure Matt Corral without blitzing and are successfully stopping the Ole Miss running game. There is opportunity for Corral to be the difference maker in the running game for Ole Miss and I think the Rebels will need him to carry it somewhere between 8-12 times. Baylor blitzes with linebackers a lot and when it becomes a numbers game in the box, Corral becomes the one guy that can end up unaccounted for. I think he can also punish the Bears for being overly aggressive in that capacity. Having four weeks to rest that ankle sure helps, too.
Tempo will be a big factor in this game and I think Ole Miss will play as fast as it can for as much of the game as possible. Think of the first half of Texas A&M game if you’re trying to get a picture of what that looks like. Dave Aranda is good at confusing opposing quarterbacks and is very malleable in terms of doing different things to stop a specific scheme. The equalizer to that is tempo. If Baylor cannot substitute the personnel it needs into the game in specific situations, it makes whatever it has planned from a schematic standpoint for a particular down much harder to do. The faster Ole Miss goes, the more base defensive concepts Baylor will have to stick with and the fewer looks it will be able to show. That’s the general thought process behind that, at least. It’s not always that simple. I think Ole Miss goes fast for pretty much the entire game. As we’ve talked about all year, that’s a bit of a double-edged sword. Going fast means potentially running three unsuccessful plays fast and having Bad Boy Mac Brown punt the football back to an offense that wants to run the ball and control the clock. The Rebels are going to have to be better on third down in this game than they have been at some points throughout the year. It’s a fascinating dynamic.
I’ll be watching the edges when Baylor is on offense. The Bears have two terrific tackles and the crux of their running game hinges on a lot of outside zone running concepts. I am not schematic savant and I am never going to pretend like I know something I don’t, but this would lead me to believe Sam Williams and Cedric Johnson will need to be good in the running game in additional to being the formidable pass rushing duo they formed this year. I am curious to see how D.J. Durkin plans to attack this and how he uses Jake Springer and the linebackers around the line of scrimmage.
Scoring opportunities will be absolutely crucial for both teams. Here’s some dynamite analysis that will hopefully land me on First Take with Stephen A. Smith one day soon: the team that scores more touchdowns and kicks fewer field goals in the red zone will win this game. Yes, groundbreaking stuff, I know. But I think it’s pretty simple in that sense. I think both teams will move the ball well between the 20s, albeit in different manners, but how each team fares in the red zone will likely decide this game. Baylor runs it well, but decision making from Gerry Bohanon will be amplified when the field shrinks. We all know the adventure Ole Miss has had in the red zone at times this year. Being fully healthy will help the Rebels, but the same can be said for the Bears. Bohanon will be 100 percent after a hamstring injury sidelined him for the team’s last two games, and running back Abram Smith will also be healthier than he was at any point during the second half of the season. Smith is an interesting story. He’s like the reverse Mark Robinson. He played linebacker up until spring ball when a suggestion from an analyst to offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes put him on the offensive side of the ball. Grimes was complaining during a meeting that the team didn’t have what it needed to execute its running scheme and lacked a heavy-hitting, downhill running back. The assistant coach pointed out Smith was a standout running back in high school. Nine months later, he ran for 1,200 yards and helped the Bears win the Big 12. Anyway, red zone is key in this one.
If the offensive line is able to block Baylor’s defensive line, there will be opportunity for advantageous matchups in Baylor’s secondary. The Bears play a lot of man coverage with two-high safeties. Kiffin and Lebby are as good as anyone in the country at creating mismatches on the perimeter. That is good news for Dontario Drummond. Is it also good news for someone like a Jerrion Ealy or Jonathan Mingo? I am curious to see who Ole Miss outlines as a mismatch early on. My guess is it’s Drummond being fed the ball in a variety of ways, as we’ve seen so often throughout the year.
That’s about all I had on that. I think Ole Miss wins this game 42-24. Enjoy the game.
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Lebby speaks about OU, finishing this game at OM
Jeff Lebby spoke to the media for the first time since accepting the Oklahoma offensive coordinator job. He said all the typical things about loving Oxford and it being a difficult decision and what not. There were a couple things that stuck out to me in particular.
When asked why he wanted to come back for this game and how difficult it’s been trying to be in two places at one time, Lebby immediately blurted out Corral’s name as a reason why.
“I wanted to be here for Matt. I wanted to be here for all these guys, to be able to go finish this thing the right way. Just a great opportunity for us to be able to go win 11 games for the first time in the history of the school and that matters. So it mattered to me to be here for them, and that's why I'm here.”
I think the relationship between Lebby and Corral is the overarching reason why Lebby will be calling plays on Saturday night. The two appear to have formed a strong bond that you don’t see very often at this level of football when results dictate the present and the future. I think this is a very close team. Corral has talked about that a lot, as has Kiffin. I think the tight-knit nature of this team also drew Lebby back for one final game but I think his relationship with Corral is at the epicenter of that.
“It’s the trust, respect and loyalty in how both of our personalities are and how we click together,” Corral said. “That’s a relationship I will have for the rest of my life. We both know that. Most of these moments I have had at Ole Miss have been with Coach Lebby and Coach Kiffin and this team. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Coach Lebby saying that is the same reasoning I have for not opting out. It’s the same thing. It’s exactly how I feel.”
Lebby seemed to be genuinely excited to see a fully-healthy offense for the first time since the Labor Day game against Louisville.
Yeah, I'm excited for a lot of reasons,” Lebby said. “But I think that reason is is probably one of the biggest. It has been a long stretch. I think when you play inside this league and you play the schedule that we're playing, it's kind of part of it and comes with the territory. While at the same time, I think we're going to step on the field Saturday night as ready as we've been since walking in the dome (Mercedes-Benz Stadium) versus Louisville. So excited about that. Hopefully continue that trend here in the next 24 hours, having all our guys and being ready to roll.”
Lebby said there is no added motivation playing Baylor. I do not believe him. I think will pour it on if given the opportunity. Just a hunch.
Lebby was great at Ole Miss. As important as Corral has been in this season coming to fruition, I am not sure Matt Corral is this version of himself without Lebby. He’s one of the best play callers and quarterback developers in college football and his work at Ole Miss is evidence of that. He should be remember fondly, and who knows, he might eventually end back up at Ole Miss as the man in charge.
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Durkin speaks on defensive turnaround
Ole Miss was a different defense after giving up over 600 yards and 51 points to Arkansas in early October. Something changed and a proverbial switch flipped. The Rebels went from looking like one of the worst units in college football to carrying an injury-riddled team over the final month of the season.
“I think this goes back to something we really built in the off-season. It was really a matter of taking ownership and pride in what we're doing. Knowing that we have to improve and play better. Our players, total credit goes to them. They have really bought into that and bought into playing together. We did a lot of things. It was about the team. There are certain things scheme-wise and different players. All those things help. But, really, the number one thing was about just playing for one another, being part of a team. And so that was big throughout the off-season. And I think after that game you just spoke of, we really leaned hard on that. We really went back to the things we had talked about and built on and said, Man, we put a lot into this thing. We're not going to let it slip away. Again, to our guys' credit, they responded the right way and I think played very well.”
Durkin made a decision to switch to a 3-2-6 defense last offseason and it looked like it was a failed strategy through four games, but it proved to be the right one. Ole Miss also played a with a physicality and an aggression you hadn’t seen from an Ole Miss defense in quite a while. Durkin will be a hot commodity in the near future. That’s sort of how this goes when a program wins. I have no clue if he will be back next year, but I do feel pretty certain the staff turnover isn’t done as it currently stands. That’s a conversation most would like to put off until Sunday morning, but it will be fascinating to see who Ole Miss keeps on this staff and who it will have to replace. Finding a way to keep Durkin would be a tremendous positive in an offseason of uncertainty and a 2022 season that will surely be filled with a lot of new faces.
Lastly, a thanks to you
I am not one for sappy end of the year reflection. But over the last few days, I have found myself thinking a lot about the growth of this newsletter and podcast in 2021. The way both content platforms have grown in the last nine months has shattered any expectation I had when I sat down one night last February and began to find a way to fill the creative itch I had since leaving sports media in a full-time capacity. It’s truly mind-boggling to me to look at where this has all gone in the short time it has existed.
I never figured we’d up with an opportunity to partner with a brand as strong as Rebel Grove. I am incredibly grateful to Chase Parham and Neal McCready for the opportunity they gave me just a couple months after I got Rippee Writes off the ground. Most all of this growth wouldn’t have been possible without them. They’re the best duo covering Ole Miss by a long shot and have worked their asses off to build a gigantic audience and an incredibly strong and stable brand. They’re very good at their jobs and you should join that team by subscribing. It’s been very cool to interact with a new audience on the message board and through the thousands of loyal podcast listeners they have. I am just honored to now be a small piece of it. I can’t thank them enough for the opportunity.
I can’t thank Weldon Rotenberg enough for hopping on the podcast during football season. The same goes for Bracken Ray and Collin Brister. Those two are terrific, but I sort of had those two established when it came to how I wanted to cover basketball and baseball. Truthfully, in July, I was lost as to how I wanted to cover football on the podcast and needed to find someone to help me. The way I view the whole podcast thing is that I never want to be the smartest person on the show because that would make for one really bad and boring product, and I was struggling to find someone I trusted to talk football with. I was friends with Weldon in college but never made the connection that a guy that worked inside an SEC Football building might be pretty good at talking about it on a microphone. I am grateful he had interest in doing it and it became immediately obvious he had a talent for it and began carrying the show. I had a ton of fun talking football with him and cannot say thanks enough for his time this year. It brought an element of expertise to the show that I simply couldn’t offer and I am tremendously grateful for that. I look forward to doing it again next fall.
Lastly, thanks to all of you who subscribe, listen and read. It means the world to me. It was a bit of a risk going out on my own and trying something new. As I have mentioned before, I basically came up with every excuse not to do it, but then eventually decided that I didn’t care if it succeeded or failed, I just would regret it if I didn’t try. You all are the reason it’s succeeded and spread beyond my wildest dreams. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun if no one listened or read. Thanks for making Rippee Writes a small part of your days and weeks. I truly can’t say thanks enough. We have some cool stuff planned for 2022 and I am excited to continue to grow all of this. The best is still yet to come. I hope you all have a wonderful and safe New Year’s. Thank you again.
(also, if you want to become an advertiser, that’d be pretty cool too. I guarantee it’ll be worth your money)
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