Ole Miss is a day away from a tune-up game against Charlotte before the ego-fueled circus that is Lane Kiffin and LSU arrive in Oxford in eight days.
This obviously feels a bit silly to come up with five thought-provoking things to watch on a week like this, in a game like this. Ole Miss is going to destroy Charlotte. The 49ers are terrible. They lost last week at home to Citadel as 21-point favorites, on the heels of a 1-11 season in 2025. Charlotte has only been a football program for 14 years. The 49ers actually have a pretty fascinating and mostly tumultuous history in that short span — from spending two years at the FCS level before quickly jumping to the FBS, to some very odd coaching hires, it’s an interesting story. I did a podcast with a Charlotte writer earlier this week chronicling all of that, if such a thing interests you.
Anyway, Ole Miss is going to annihilate Charlotte. The game is what it is. But even on weeks like this, there are some things you can reasonably look for to try to learn something about the Rebels.
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1. Is the defensive communication better
As we discussed earlier in the week, Ole Miss’ lack of communication was a killer in the win over Louisville. The Cardinals had nine plays of 20 or more yards, and essentially 75 percent of their offensive output came on these plays. The vast majority of these plays were enabled by some pretty alarming busts from the Ole Miss defense, particularly in the secondary. I suppose that’s both good and bad. It’s good in the sense that it never appeared to be a talent or depth issue, but bad in the sense that, well, good defenses shouldn’t have those types of communication and execution errors as frequently as Ole Miss did. I thought Pete Golding summed it up pretty well earlier this week.
“You get concerned as a coach when it is a contested play. They go up and they make the play over your guy and they do that consistently,” Golding said. “Their Jimmys are better than our Joes. That’s a bad feeling as a coach because it doesn’t matter what you call. That wasn’t what this was. Sometimes, you’ll do new things in a game to stop an opponent. That wasn’t what this was either. Some of these were day-one camp calls. It was a lack of execution and focus at some critical points. That’s something we have to work on.”
“That was the best part about what went wrong on that tape. It doesn’t matter if you are playing Louisville, Charlotte or Delta State. If you call ‘three cloud’ and they don’t roll to cloud, it’s a touchdown. I don’t give a shit who you play. That was the best thing about it, on both sides and really all three phases, if you do that, you aren’t going to like the outcome.”
I am not going to sit here and tell you that when the Ole Miss defense dominates an abysmal Charlotte offense that you should feel much better about the Rebels going into next week’s game against LSU. But I think some of what Golding says has merit. If there is a coverage bust or two in this game that leaves a Charlotte receiver running wide open, that’s a very bad sign. As Golding mentioned, some of those mistakes this defense made last week would’ve been touchdowns no matter the quality of the opponent. Does that part look any better and get cleaned up this week?
Ole Miss played a lot of guys in the secondary last week. Six players played at least 24 snaps. That’s in part due to Antonio Kite exiting early in the game with an injury and Sharief Denson not being healthy enough to play at all ( I have no clue what his injury is). Golding mentioned during preseason camp that guys were rotating around to different positions due to the secondary being banged up. Does Ole Miss shrink its rotation at all in this game — in the few snaps of consequence before the deficit balloons and clear-cut back-up players get in?
I am curious to see if the defense looks better from a communication standpoint, particularly on the back-end and whether or not as many players play meaningful snaps.
2. Is the tackling any better?
This one is probably less definitive than the first point because it is at least slightly more dependent on the quality of the opponent. Part of good or bad tackling hinges upon how fast and strong the opposing ball carrier is. The guys toting the football for Charlotte this week will not be a remotely similar test to who the Rebels see for the rest of this season. But with as poorly as Ole Miss tackled at times in last week’s win over Louisville, I do think this is somewhat relevant. The Rebels missed 19 tackles against Louisville.
“This week is about us. It is faceless, it is nameless,” Golding said. “If we don’t get that corrected, we are going to be playing some real guys coming up, and if we do those things, we aren’t going to like the result. It came at the right time. Now, the focus is back on us, the attention to detail, training our eyes, taking the correct angles… all the things that had nothing to do with anything else.”
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3. Do we see more of the same from the pass-catching corps?
Between wide receivers and tight ends, five players played 37 or more snaps. Two of those were tight ends in Caleb Odom and Luke Hasz. Deuce Alexander was the star of the game. I thought Horatio Fields looked promising and that Odom had a nice game. Three receivers and two tight ends caught passes in the win. Do we see more from the receivers in particular? Syracuse transfer Johntay Cook played but didn’t record a reception. He was targeted once in the end zone but couldn’t come up with the football on a contested play. Fellow Syracuse transfer Darrell Gill didn’t record a catch and neither did Caleb Cunningham.
Cunningham is the one I am most interested in. The sophomore was a talented signee out of high school and a major recruiting win for the Rebels. He was injured for much of his freshman year. At one point during preseason camp, Golding said that Cunningham was “healthy and finally looking like himself again.”
When asked earlier this week about Cunningham, Golding said this.
“Managing some of the soft tissue stuff, there were very specific roles and packages that didn’t come up,” Golding said. “That’s definitely a focus moving forward. We have got to get Caleb more involved as he gets healthier because he is an explosive player.”
I don’t really know what to make of that. I am now curious how healthy Cunningham actually is. If he is healthy, you will undoubtedly see him in this game against Charlotte.
I thought there was some good and some bad in the season opener from a pretty unproven pass-catching corps (other than Alexander). Ole Miss played a lot of two-tight end personnel. Odom was pretty good. Hasz wasn’t that productive in the passing game, but that’s not really a concern for me, at least not yet. Fields and Alexander looked good, but Ole Miss is going to need more than two sturdy options at receiver. Is that Cook? Is it Cunningham? Is it Ray? Is it Gill? I don’t know, but one or more of those four players are going to need to be a consistent factor in this offense. I’m not sure how much we will learn about that this week, but I am curious to see who plays and how much, particularly as it relates to Cunningham.
4. What does the injury situation look like?
We don’t get an official injury report prior to this game because it is not an SEC game. In the Lane Kiffin era, it didn’t really matter even when we got injury reports because Kiffin essentially used it as an opportunity to f**k with everyone. He did not take it seriously at all. I have no clue what Golding’s approach will be to injury reports.
The season-opener was not kind to Ole Miss from an injury standpoint. Two offensive linemen left the game, Delano Townsend and Tommy Kinsler IV. Kewan Lacy got injured early in the game. Alexander left after his second touchdown of the night. Kam Franklin got injured, as did Kite and linebacker Keaton Thomas.
The good news is that none of them sound like serious injuries.
“We are definitely banged up,” Golding said. “The good news is that all x-rays are negative, and MRIs, even Keaton Thomas’ foot. A lot of bumps and bruises.”
I’ll be curious to see who plays and who doesn’t in this game. My guess is that we do not see Lacy again until the LSU game. He was sidelined for most of the win over Louisville with what the TV broadcast classified as a bone bruise. I have no clue how serious or lingering something like that is. If any doctors are out there reading this, feel free to offer your feedback. I’m just some clown with a newsletter. But no matter how serious or not serious Lacy’s injury is, I don’t really know what Ole Miss gains from playing him in this game. You know exactly what Lacy is and what he is capable of doing. He shouldered the heaviest carries load of any running back in Division-I football last year. A week off is probably ultimately a good thing for him.
Defensively, however, with all the issues the Rebels had last week, I have to imagine that if any of the aforementioned injured defenders are healthy, the coaching staff would like for them to play a couple of series to see what this defense looks like in its second game, mostly to see how much of last week’s collection of gaffes can be cleaned up.
I am not sure what to make of the offensive line situation. Ole Miss can win this game easily no matter who it plays. But I figure they’ll want to have the starting unit get some reps in if it all possible. I am curious to see if Kinsler and Townsend play, and if they do, for how many snaps.
It’ll be a fun Saturday of constantly looking back-and-forth from the field to my cell phone as I look at the official roster because it takes me at least three games to memorize everyone’s number.
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5. What’s the crowd like?
This is admittedly a throw-away for my fifth and final item. Hey, cut me some slack, it’s Charlotte. But I am at least moderately interested in this. It’s going to be hot as hell on Saturday in Oxford. A night game should somewhat help mitigate the heat. But with what looms next week, a game that will be so much more than a football game, and a snoozer of an opponent this week, I will be curious to see what the crowd turnout looks like for this one.
It’s the first regular season home game of a new era of Ole Miss Football, even if it might not necessarily feel that way given the unique circumstances surrounding Golding getting the job and how that whole situation played out last winter. I have no doubts about the excitement and investment level of this fanbase. This is a veteran team with a lot of talent. This team has College Football Playoff aspirations. It faces a much more difficult path to get there than it did a season ago, but it has the talent to do it.
Regardless of how the crowd looks, I do not think Golding will go into his postgame press conference and chastise the fanbase for not showing up or staying long enough — mostly because Golding seems like a remotely normal adult who is not addicted to attention and proverbial pot stirring. But I am curious to see what the turnout is in a game that feels like the calm before the storm on September 19.
We’ll have more coverage on Sunday. Have a great weekend.