Changing mindsets, expectations and a unique opportunity ahead for Ole Miss
What is the this team's ceiling?
With each week that passes and culminates with another win secured, the Ole Miss football program continues its ascent into a rare altitude that it hasn’t flirted with in generations. The Rebels are 6-0 for just the second time since 1962. The other came in 2014, when Ole Miss started 7-0 in Hugh Freeze’s third year.
Ole Miss is now 17-3 in its last 20 games. That’s the mark of a big boy program. After last week’s win over Kentucky, my friend Neal McCready noted in his weekly 10 Weekend Thoughts column that only four programs have better records than Ole Miss in the span of the last 19 games: Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma State and Michigan. Ohio State was also 16-3. Clemson posted a mark of 15-4. Obviously, this is an arbitrary stat that doesn’t really prove anything earth-shatteringly significant on its own, but it is still a pretty good indicator of the level of consistency Kiffin has elevated this program to. It’s a level that 95 percent of schools are constantly striving to attain. Few are successful in that pursuit. Even fewer maintain it for any significant period of time (Ole Miss is currently in this boat, to be fair). But the desire to get there and stay there is so great that athletic departments routinely shell out tens of millions of dollars to pay coaches not to coach at their school anymore because they couldn’t satisfy the school’s unquenchable thirst for winning and completely unreasonable expectations. These same schools pay even more money for the next coach to come in and try, despite the odds of him achieving what he’s paid to achieve being much slimmer than most want to admit.
What’s the point in starting the column like this, you ask? Surely there are far more pressing things to cover with this flawed but fascinating team. That’s probably true, but it’s worth taking a moment to remind folks how high the quality of the product is that you’re consuming every week and how seldom you, the fans, have been treated to it in recent history. Isn’t this a hell of a lot more fun than mirroring the schedule with the prospect of bowl eligibility, and writing losses down in pen in August, skeptical of the prospect of Ole Miss winning against anyone not named Vanderbilt, Arkansas or Mississippi State? That’s not to insinuate that any of you were ever content with that or enjoyed it. But that’s essentially what the Matt Luke era was, and it wasn’t that long ago. Ole Miss technically achieved bowl eligibility after Saturday’s win. Did any of you care? Did any of you notice? I didn’t think so. Savor the fun in all of this. Enjoy the week-to-week ride. It hasn’t always been this way, as you well know, and as we outlined above, it’s hard as hell to get here even if you always expected and demanded more. Buyout money is endless and the perpetually spinning coaching carousel, fueled by the seemingly unattainable desire to find the right guy, can last decades. Winning consistently is hard. Your team having a chance in every single game it plays is rare, particularly in the SEC West. That’s exactly where Ole Miss currently sits. Where does it go from here?
The last two weeks are evidence of a change in culture
I’ve opined on the podcast more than once that while the flaws are abundant on this team, you’re witnessing a culture change. Ole Miss is learning how to win games rather than hope not to lose them. Last week’s victory over the Kentucky Wildcats is evidence of that. The defense forced two crucial turnovers late in the game to preserve a win over a top-10 opponent. It also extended the Rebels’ home winning streak to 13 games. Only Clemson, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and N.C. State own longer streaks. Rather than be victims of a slow, painful and familiar manner of defeat, in a game in which they never trailed, the Rebels made the two biggest plays of the game to make amends for its second-half offensive struggles. Ole Miss found a way to win a close game, as it so often has under Kiffin.
I walked to the Grove afterward and chatted with some family, friends and readers/listeners. The general sentiment was: “Wow, they kind of win these types of games more often than they don’t win them.” Mindsets are changing.
Neither confidence nor fragility from fans have any effect on the outcome of games, but it can sometimes serve as a mirror for what is happening inside a program. Ole Miss has won a lot of those types of games in the last two years. Basic statistics and probability makes certain that won’t always be the case. Coin-flip games are called that for a reason, but historically speaking, such scenarios have often felt like the Rebels had less than a 50-50 shot of winning — rather than seemingly winning all of them like they have for the last 24 months. That has to be indicative of something. Don’t just take my word for it.
“I think it’s two things,” Nick Broeker said on our podcast last week. “The first one is that we have been in that moment a lot, so we are more experienced, particularly some of the older guys, and I think that helps. The second thing is that we always preach that we are playing to win the football game instead of playing not to lose, if that makes sense. We are trying to go make plays and attack the games instead of being back on our heels. It’s not thinking ‘okay, if we let them catch for eight yards, it is still fine. We are still okay. That mentality is out the window now. With every snap, we are trying to go make plays to win the game.”
Conversely, I thought the Vanderbilt game was somewhat indicative of that same culture shift. While improved from the incompetence of the last three years, the Commodores aren’t a good football team, and don’t mistake this thought for me telling you that beating Vanderbilt in Nashville is proof of this team’s excellence. It’s not. The Rebels were supposed to handle Vanderbilt with relative ease. The evidence lies in the sheer fact that this team did not let a sluggish start in the first 25 minutes of the game dictate the remaining 35 minutes.
When Vandy running back Ray Davis crossed the goal line on a five-yard touchdown run with 1:32 remaining in the first half to put Ole Miss in a 20-10 hole, the Rebels didn’t flinch. Trailing an inferior SEC opponent on the road, this team did not allow the game to turn into a painstaking, 60-minute dog fight. They trailed by double digits with 92 seconds remaining in the first half. Eleven minutes and two seconds of game time later, Ole Miss led 38-20. A late touchdown before halftime (which was a crucial drive, by the way) to cut the deficit to three at 20-17, coupled with a needed reprieve at halftime, helped the Rebels flip the proverbial switch and impose their will, devolving the into the snooze fest it was supposed to be.
The Commodores played sound football in the first half, particularly on offense. The running game gashed the Ole Miss defense on the interior to the tune of 79 yards. Quarterback A.J. Swann went 11-16 for 142 yards with a touchdown and no turnovers.
In his post-halftime interview Kiffin aptly described the team’s first half performance as “screwing around.” Once play resumed, the Commodores ran 16 offensive snaps in the third quarter and gained 31 yards. The Ole Miss defense essentially said, “enough of this.” The offense followed suit with 21 points, 217 yards and three touchdowns. Jaxson Dart’s lone incompletion came on a bizarre looking interception that negated what would’ve in all likelihood been a 4th touchdown in a quarter that defined the game because Ole Miss decided it would.
That is the DNA of a good team and a competently run program. How many good Ole Miss teams of years past would’ve instead been engaged in a 60-minute fight to avoid a season-spoiling loss? Can you imagine a 5-1 start with the lone blemish being a loss to a Vanderbilt program that has not won an SEC game since the previous presidential administration? Ole Miss was just 7-7 in its last 14 matchups with Vanderbilt. It is not as if this has been a lopsided series for decades. The point is that this team turned a game that had all the ingredients of another head-scratching circus into a lopsided victory.This team shouldn’t be lauded for beating Vanderbilt by a lot, but for a group that has not yet been battle-tested beyond the Kentucky game, that was certainly a sign of an emotionally stable group, if nothing else. Emotional stability is becoming increasingly rare in college football as upsets become more frequent and strange results occurring more often.
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A realistic opportunity for a rare feat now lies ahead
At the halfway point of the 2022 season, Ole Miss is 6-0 and 2-0 in SEC play. A hapless Auburn team limps to Oxford before the Rebels take a trip to Baton Rouge to face a bad LSU team. Should this team handle its business next week and survive a hostile environment against a Tigers team it is better than, Ole Miss will travel to College Station two days before Halloween with an undefeated record and just four games remaining.
We’ve revisited this team’s ceiling on a nearly weekly basis on the podcast. It’s a fun exercise. I thought they were likely an eight-win team in August. Last week’s victory over Kentucky was the first time I considered 10 wins as a rational possibility. The reality is that everything is on the table for Ole Miss as it enters a challenging — but perhaps tamer than we initially thought — back half of the season. I have tried to avoid this conversation for as long as possible, simply due to it being a dramatically premature discussion to have in September: but I no longer feel as if it is premature.
Does Ole Miss have a realistic chance to win its first ever SEC Western Division title?
I think the short answer is yes, and I am not sure I could’ve made a rational case for that in August. Look around the league right now. Texas A&M lost to Appalachian State, barely skated past a bad Miami team, and need a couple of wildly fortunate breaks to beat Arkansas. Despite having an immensely talented and fierce defense, the Aggies run an outdated offensive scheme with a below average quarterback. Perhaps this isn’t the most appropriate time to water down Texas A&M, considering it was three yards away from knocking off Alabama in Tuscaloosa last Saturday — but that is also sort of the point. Even the vaunted Crimson Tide feel beatable. Bryce Young’s shoulder injury aside, the Crimson Tide’s offensive line is pedestrian at best and they do not have the stable of future first round draft picks at the wide receiver position that we’ve all become accustomed to them having on a yearly basis. Now, the defense is still incredibly stout and Jahmyr Gibbs might be the best running back in the sport. But Alabama was fortunate to escape Texas with a win and barely held off the Aggies last Saturday.
Arkansas has the worst pass defense in the conference outside of Vanderbilt and appears to be emotionally shattered after losing three in a row. I am still not totally sure what LSU does well and Auburn is playing with a lame duck head coach and no quarterback. For much of the year, Mississippi State has looked the most consistent team in the division — and as good as the Bulldogs are, I am still mostly convinced the air raid will giveth and the air raid will taketh away too often to win a division title.
Don’t confuse this as a case for Ole Miss being the favorite to win the division. That is hardly true. It’s still Alabama by a long shot. And the Rebels are a flawed football team. We’ll get to more of that in a minute. I outline all of this simply to point out that the SEC West is not as much of the gauntlet it was the last time this conversation was warranted in 2014 and 2015. Traditional powers Auburn and LSU are down. Despite its New York Yankees-like recruiting budget, no one has told Jimbo Fisher that it is not in fact 2012 anymore. The Year From Hell Roulette Wheel appears to have chosen Arkansas as its victim this year. The toughest division in the sport is more wide open than it’s been at any time in recent memory.
Will Ole Miss win the SEC West? I don’t know. I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it. But I do know that the Rebels have a decent shot at being favored in every game left on the schedule outside of Alabama. So, when looking at it in the most simplistic way, wouldn’t that mean it has a decent shot of winning the division?
I still don’t feel like I have a firm grasp of how good Ole Miss is. The way the schedule lays out has made concrete determinations more difficult to find at the season’s halfway point. What I do know is that the Rebels run the football well, play good defense and seemingly never coach themselves out of games. That’s not quite enough for me to pick them as the horse to win the race, but it is more than enough for me to not rule them out.
Coaching competence matters
That’s another thing that shouldn’t be lost in the macro lens here. Ole Miss doesn’t coach itself out of games. When’s the last time you watched and Ole Miss game and wondered what the hell they were doing from a game plan standpoint or felt like they lost the game because the men in the headsets handicapped the team? I suppose you could maybe say Arkansas last year given how the defense played, but the Rebels won that game. I am not sure how you blame anything in the 2020 season on coaching. It just hasn’t really happened. The Rebels are a well-coached team. Fisher and A&M are the antithesis of this. I wouldn’t call LSU a well-coached team either, though I find it hard to judge Brian Kelly on this season. Ole Miss has an advantage in that category nearly every week it takes the field. That matters. It matters a lot.
To bring this conversation full circle, coaching incompetence is part of what fuels the absurd buyout totals schools are paying. It’s often the difference between a nine and 10-win season, or 10 and 11 wins. That’s really what this column is meant to articulate. Ole Miss has competent leadership running its football program and the results speak to that. Enjoy and savor it as fans, because it has not always been this way. The Rebels were 4-8 three seasons ago. In 2020, they boasted one of the worst defenses in college football history, yet still won five games in an unprecedented, 10-game, conference-only schedule. And now, Ole Miss has a great chance to win double-digit games in back-to-back seasons for the first time since pre-integration and color TV. The way Kiffin has reshaped and rebuilt this roster in such a short amount of time is a remarkable thing to watch unfold.
The weekly game notes the media relations staff puts out will tell you that this is the first time Ole Miss has started 6-0 *without having to vacate any wins* since 1962, obviously omitting the 2014 season due to the half-decade long NCAA investigation debacle. As silly of a punishment vacating wins is, there may be some unintended merit to it. The last time Ole Miss ascended toward this rarified air was during the Hugh Freeze era. As memorable as those years were for fans, I think any rational person would admit that that aircraft felt like it was built out of tin foil and eventually primed for a sharp descent. It ended up taking a nose dive due to a bird strike comprised of Tampa escorts, an NCAA investigation made personal by challenging the investigators’ religion and some of the sloppiest “cheating” in the industry — all overseen by an immature pilot completely ill-equipped to fly the aircraft. When a plane is flailing, loving one another and reciting scripture won’t make it more aerodynamic.
This version certainly feels more sturdy. Who knows how high it will soar, but the possibility of nosedive feels minuscule compared to the last time Ole Miss Football reached this altitude. Sustained is rare. That’s the next step for this program, and the infrastructure feels better suited to get them there this time around.
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Things I like, things I don’t like
We’ve missed some time on this newsletter, so rather than cover every single thing that’s happened, I’ll borrow a segment from a talented ESPN NBA writer named Zach Lowe and list things I like and don’t like about this team so far. I have seven of each.
Things I like:
The obvious first pick here is the running game. The Rebels are second in the SEC in rushing yards per game at a 242 average. Zach Evans and Quinshon Judkins are arguably the best one-two punch in the sport. It’s mesmerizing to watch them run each week. If there is grounds for pause here, it’s the fact that the Evans has been banged up the last couple of weeks and the Rebels are already without Ulysses Bentley IV (and likely will be for a couple more weeks). Bentley is the best pass-catching back of the three. That element of the offense has been missing in his absence. As great as Evans and Judkins are, their power diminishes by default if one of them becomes unavailable. The days of making it through a season by giving one running back 30 carries a game are seemingly long gone. But when healthy, these two are the heart of this offense, and a damn strong one at that.
I think the receivers have played well the last two weeks. Jonathan Mingo set all kinds of records last week with his nine-catch, 247-yard performance with two touchdowns. But it goes beyond him. Malik Heath caught six balls for 100 yards in the win over Kentucky. For a passing game that could accurately be classified as shaky through the first six games, these two outside receivers have shown flashes of dominance. The chemistry with Dart is still a work in progress, but the sheer fact that Ole Miss has two receivers capable of performances like the ones they’ve put together the last two weeks is an encouraging sign. The Rebels don’t need to be dynamic in the passing game, they just need to be good enough to prevent the offense from becoming one-dimensional. The quarterback has enough talent not to limit them from a “what can they throw” standpoint, despite his poor propensity to make a couple of terrible decisions each game. Ole Miss simply needs two reliable targets to help out a young signal caller and catch the football consistently.
Jonathan Cruz is 4-5 on field goal attempts with a long of 53 (which was a crucial make in the Kentucky win). The one miss was a blocked kick. He has also not failed a drug test. Both of these will prove to be important as tougher games lie ahead.
Ole Miss has been more multiple in the defensive looks it has given this year. Last year, the Rebels went to a 3-2-6 scheme out of necessity and rarely strayed from it. The 2021 team lacked depth on the defensive line and was thin at linebacker, so the 3-2-6 suited them well. With improved defensive line depth, capable linebacker play and an even better secondary, this team is showing some four-man front looks and even flashed a five-man front in the win over Vanderbilt. The switch to a four-man front seemed to make a difference in stopping the Commodores’ rushing attack in the second half. I do not pretend to be a schematic savant, but the Rebels being more multiple defensively cannot be a bad thing.
Ole Miss is third in the SEC in sacks with 16 on the year. That’s the product of talent, and equally as important, real depth up front, something that the Rebels have not yet had in the Kiffin era until now.
Jaxson Dart has looked much more comfortable in the offense over the last three weeks. From the Tulsa game on, he’s seemed more decisive and confident in the way conducts himself. This was one of the benefits of the schedule being light on the front end. It gave a new, young quarterback time to become accustomed to the scheme. It appears that game repetition has helped him progress in this regard. Dart has shown his talent and ability to make difficult throws. It’s the decision-making that’s grounds for pause.
The Rebels have also forced 10 turnovers, behind only LSU and Mississippi State (12).
Things I don’t like
I don’t quite understand what is going on on the offensive line. The snapping woes are an issue in its own right, but the Rebels have started a different offensive line combination in each of the last two games. Injuries have played a role. Caleb Warren was banged up prior to the Kentucky game, which resulted in Jeremy James sliding to guard, freshman Micah Pettus going to right tackle and Eli Acker going to center. Warren eventually came into that game in reserve. Last week, Acker didn’t start and played sparingly in reserve. Ole Miss now starts two freshmen at each tackle spot. While I believe that to be more of a testament to how good each of them are rather than a necessity born out of desperation, the shuffling around for a unit that was supposed to be the strength of the team is at least a little bit peculiar. It’s not a huge issue. The pass blocking hasn’t always looked great based off the eye test alone, but at the same time, the Rebels have allowed the fewest sacks in the SEC by a long shot with just two allowed. Ole Miss also hasn’t exactly been tested by the stiffest competition yet, so I think we will learn more about this offensive line in the coming weeks.
The most obvious note on this list is the poor decision making from Dart. It was on display once last week. Dart threw a terrible interception into double coverage as he scrambled to his left on the first play of the Rebels’ third drive. They trailed 10-3 and it gave Vanderbilt a prime opportunity go up 14 points, though the defense held to a field goal.
What was ironic about that play is that it initially appeared that Dart was being cautious with the football, opting at least once, and possibly twice, against forcing a throw. Then, he scrambled to the left and instead of getting upfield for a positive gain or throwing the ball away, he chucked a prayer into a sea of defenders. Predictably, it did not end well.
I still don’t fully grasp this unshakable gunslinger mentality. Perhaps it’s just the fearless nature of a young quarterback trying to build better habits. Maybe those habits are harder to break after he spent half a year in a disastrous situation at USC where he was perpetually in ‘f**k it’ mode, trying to stabilize a sinking ship. Whatever it is, it’s eventually going to cost Ole Miss more dearly than it has to this point — and by that I mean that it is likely going to cost the Rebels a game. It’s not even always bad reads or not seeing a defender. A lot of the time it’s simply “why would you throw it at all?” It’s more of “what were you thinking?” rather than “what did you see there?” There is so much good with Dart and so much untapped potential. That much is clear. It’s why he won the starting job and why he was so coveted in the transfer portal. But this habit is going to cost the Rebels a game at some point if it isn’t broken. How do you break it? I don’t know. I am not paid seven figures to find out.
Ole Miss’ tackling at the second level has been suspect at times this season. For a vastly improved defense that is faster, more athletic and populates the football better than anything we saw during the Luke era, tackling has subpar at times.
As previously mentioned, Ole Miss has been a little banged up at running back. Bentley has missed the last three games and likely will miss at least one more (and maybe more), from what I understand. Evans was hobbled going into Kentucky week. This position is the strength of the offense, and as good as Evans and Judkins are individually, they’re weakened when both aren’t available, not to mention the pass-catching element that’s lacking without Bentley. It’s imperative that the Rebels stay healthy in the running back room in the second half of the season.
Michael Trigg will miss an extended amount of time with a broken collarbone he suffered in Saturday’s win. One media outlet reported he will miss the rest of the season. I believe that to be speculation at best and likely inaccurate, but that is neither here nor there for now. Trigg has 17 catches for 156 yards and three touchdowns on the year, but just four catches in the two SEC games. Even when healthy, he was treading water a bit in this offense and the production at the tight end position has been less than I think most of us expected this year. With Trigg out, it’ll only get more difficult. Kiffin loves using a tight end when he has a special one. Trigg had (and still has) a chance to be that. With him sidelined, the Rebels are going to have to look elsewhere for production in the passing game. And by elsewhere, I mean Casey Kelly and Kyrin Heath.
The discourse regarding new uniforms is silly. I have engaged it far too many times and I am not going on a rant again. The players like the new helmets. They think it looks cool. Recruits love it too. That is really all that matters. You don’t like them? Cool. Become colorblind like me. Problem solved.
Student section shaming is back in a big way, and for the life of me, I still do not understand this trend. The students got shafted. That section sucks. It’s a roofless microwave in the crappiest part of the stadium. There’s a reason the visiting fans used to sit there. The student section is also too large. Perhaps they should lower the ACT admission requirements from a 12 to a 6 to better fill it. Spending time online mad at 18-22 year olds for not sticking around in the second half of a snooze fest non-conference game is a gigantic waste of time. In what other setting would you be so inclined to tell a group of strangers to not do what they want to do and instead do what you want them to do. “College is the best four years of your life, except if you leave a football game early. If you do that, then screw you.” I really understand what they mean by Southern Charm now. The attendance debate is nauseating in general. Let people do what they want. The world would be a better place in general if more people abided by that principle.
We’ll have more on Auburn later this week.
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