Friday Five: 5 things to watch as Rebels battle Kentucky
running game, secondary match-ups and game management strategy
Ole Miss opens conference play on Saturday against Kentucky. The Wildcats enter the game 0-2 in conference play, mostly due to a stagnant offense not supporting a stout defense.
Kentucky will present Ole Miss challenges in multiple areas for the first time this season, though the Rebels should still win this game comfortably. Here are five things I will be thinking about at kickoff and throughout the game tomorrow.
Can Ole Miss run the football consistently?
A simple idea but certainly a relevant one for this game. Kentucky’s interior defensive line is talented and physically imposing. Defensive tackle Deone Walker, who is listed at 6-foot-6, 345 lbs., is a future first round draft pick. Keshawn Silver flanks beside him at 6-foot-4, 336 lbs. If you read any coverage of Kentucky from its local beat, you’ll quickly learn that Mark Stoops and his staff designed this defense to stop opponents from running the football on the interior while eliminating explosive plays on the back end.
While the raw yardage numbers have been good, Ole Miss’ running game hasn’t been as consistent or explosive as previous Lane Kiffin teams. This will be a tremendous challenge for the offensive line, as well as Henry Parrish and Matt Jones. Is this the week Ulysses Bentley is finally set free? Does Ole Miss run more on the outside? If the Rebels don’t have success running the football early in the game, how long do they stick with it and how does that change the offense? I am curious to see how this goes as this running game will face its first formidable test of the year.
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Does the secondary hold up against a pair of gifted receivers?
Kentucky has two good receivers in Dane Key and Barrion Brown and will provide the toughest test the secondary has faced this year. Brown is an explosive player who has made a name as a return specialist and has been up-and-down as a receiver. Brown has elite speed. Kentucky’s offense, ideally, wants to be aggressive throwing the football down the field. Quarterback Brock Vandagriff’s numbers to this point wouldn’t necessarily suggest that. He’s gone 46-79 for 550 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions through four games (really 3.5 games as the season opener with USM was called at halftime due to weather). Kentucky’s issues in the passing game have stemmed from its inability to protect Vandagriff coupled with his tendency to hold onto the football too long. In the two SEC games against South Carolina and Georgia, Vandagriff has completed just 44 percent of his passes.
Kentucky is aggressive with pre-snap motion and uses play action on nearly 40 percent of its passing snaps. While the Wildcats passing game hasn’t been explosive to this point, it will require the Ole Miss secondary to be sound in its assignments and communication. Kentucky is perfectly capable of punishing the Rebels for communication breakdowns. Vandagriff is also a willing and capable runner who has generated a large chunk of Kentucky’s offensive production on broken plays.
Ole Miss has rotated a lot of guys at safety and will likely be without Louis Moore due to injury. If the Rebels can thwart the Kentucky passing game from gaining steam, I don’t think the Wildcats are capable of keeping pace with the Ole Miss offense.
Conversely, just how explosive is this Ole Miss passing game?
Ole Miss is littered with great pass-catching options and present match-up problems with a number of different targets. This should be a pretty good measuring stick for how explosive the receiving corps is. Kentucky has allowed just 142 yards passing per game this year and held both Georgia and South Carolina under 170 yards passing. Defensive back Maxwell Hairston is a preseason first-team All-SEC corner. He’s listed as questionable after suffering an injury in last week’s win over Ohio. His health will be a pretty significant factor in all of this.
It’s almost a given that a Lane Kiffin offense will consistently generate open receivers. Look what he did with the pedestrian 2021 and 2022 receiving corps. But if Kentucky is able to prevent Ole Miss from generating chunk plays in the deep passing game, how does that change the Rebels’ approach offensively, if at all? I actually believe Ole Miss is so good in the passing game with all of its options to catch the football, that I would lean toward the passing game being the reason Ole Miss wins the game comfortably. Kentucky is playing more man coverage than it has in the past under stoops. I am curious to see what some of the receiver-cornerback battles look like.
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Does Ole Miss make Kentucky one-dimensional?
Kentucky’s projected starting running back, Chip Trayanum, has yet to play this season due to injury and the Wildcats’ running game has seemingly taken a hit because of it. Kentucky is averaging 165 rush yards per game. In its two SEC contests, the Wildcats have rushed for 139 and 170 yards respectively, but at just 3.0 and 3.8 yards per rush. Kentucky ran the football 46 times against South Carolina and 45 times against Georgia.
It appears unlikely that Ole Miss will be able to get Kentucky to stop attempting to run the football, but if the Rebels hold the Wildcats to somewhere in the neighborhood of that three yards per rush neighborhood, it will put immense pressure on Vandagriff and an offensive line that has struggled to pass protect. If Kentucky doesn’t generate explosive plays from its running game, I struggle to see how it will be able to score enough to keep up with the Rebels.
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Short-yardage situations
At risk of harping on this to the point of beating a dead horse, I am interested to see how short-yardage situations affect this game, particularly running the football. Ole Miss has struggled to convert third and fourth down short yardage scenarios with its running backs (against below average defenses, too) and has required J.J. Pegues’ services to convert — which is a perfectly viable strategy. But Kentucky will be an entirely different animal in terms of opposition.
Kiffin is one of the most aggressive coaches in college football and goes for it on fourth down at a high clip. Kentucky’s formidable defensive front will test Ole Miss’ offensive line and its ability to get tough yards in important situations. If Kentucky generates a fourth down stop or two and gives its pedestrian offense a short field, how does that impact the game?
If Kentucky continues to struggle on offense, will that change how Kiffin plays this game from a decision-making standpoint? We’ve seen him do that before. Last year’s Egg Bowl comes to mind. It seemed like he knew Mississippi State wasn’t going to score on offense, so the Rebels went into a metaphorical shell, punted often on fourth down and let its defense win the game.
Fourth down strategy and how aggressive Kiffin is with it, and Ole Miss’ ability to convert in short-yardage situations will be something I am interested in as the game progresses.
Thanks for reading. We will have more coverage on Sunday.