The good and bad from Ole Miss' win over Oklahoma
The good, the bad and what it might mean going forward for the Rebels
In the final minutes of the first half, Ole Miss looked like it was ready to throw in the towel on the 2024 season. The Rebels gifted a hapless Oklahoma team a 14-10 halftime lead and seemed lifeless as another game was on the verge of getting away from them.
Instead, Jaxson Dart said the team had a ‘look in the mirror’ moment in the halftime locker room. Ole Miss scored two third-quarter touchdowns, the defense pitched a shutout in the second half and the Rebels put the game away. I suppose what you take from this game depends on the outlook you prefer to have. There was plenty of bad but also a lot of good. I am not sure any of it makes me feel much different about what this team is and might become over the final four games, but the Rebels didn’t wilt, and there’s something to be said for that. Let’s take a look at both the good and the bad in alternating fashion.
Good: offensive plan without Tre Harris
Ole Miss was without its top receiver Tre Harris in this game. I thought the way the Rebels adapted was great. Ole Miss used a lot of two-tight end personnel, utilized both Caden Prieskorn and Dae’Quan Wright effectively as both pass-catchers and run-blockers. Ole Miss opened the game with a 75-yard touchdown drive. Prieskorn and Wright each caught a pass that accounted for 51 of those yards. The offense struggled to run the ball against a good Oklahoma rush defense, but this offense looked different, in a good way, without its top receiver.
Have you been considering buying or selling a home or condo in Oxford? Don't try to tackle it alone. Let Drew McGehee of Crye-Leike Oxford help you through the process from beginning to end. Drew is an Ole Miss alum and has lived and worked in the Oxford area his entire life. With a background in both banking and insurance, he has a wealth of knowledge to guide you through the entire process. So don't hesitate, call or text Drew today to get started today. You can reach him on his cell at 662-380-0314 or call the Crye-Leike Oxford office at 662-234-9868.
Bad: Ole Miss still can’t run the ball effectively
Nothing looked different in the running game this week. Henry Parrish Jr. got the bulk of the carries and Ulysses Bentley IV got a few in the absence of an injured Matt Jones. The presence of two tight ends on the field did not appear to do much to help this struggling rushing attack. The Rebels ran the ball 31 times for 69 yards. Parrish ran it 15 times for 44 yards. Bentley had five carries for five yards. Ole Miss was bad in-short yardage situations again — to the point of drastically changing the game late in the first half due to a bad play call that almost felt like an admission from the coaching staff that it doesn’t believe Ole Miss can consistently get 3-6 feet when it needs to.
I do not know what Ole Miss can do to improve its running game. It appears uncreative, but I don’t know enough about scheme to tell you which run concepts should be used instead. It appears the staff is hell-bent on keeping the running back rotation the same (I am curious to see what happens when Jones comes back from injury), but this offense is going to be limited without an effective and explosive running game.
Good: Jaxson Dart
Dart got off to a sluggish start but ended up playing a pretty effective game. He was 22-30 for 311 yards and a touchdown. Dart spread the ball around to the two tight ends, Cayden Lee, Juice Wells and Jordan Watkins. Prieskorn led with five receptions for 71 yards and a touchdown. Lee and Watkins had four catches. Wright and Wells had three catches. All five names mentioned had at least four targets. Prieskorn led with eight targets.
The passing game’s effectiveness is the single biggest reason Ole Miss moved the ball and won the game. Dart deserves a lot of credit for that. He made a hell of a throw to Micah Davis on a crucial third down conversion in the second half. The touchdown to Prieskorn was a good throw to capitalize on a great play call. He didn’t turn the ball over. Dart was really efficient in this game.
Football season IS BACK. If you’re a wagering man and aren’t using SkyBox, you will likely lose money and have no one else to blame but yourself. Sign up for a picks package now and ensure you profit this football season. They’re the best in the business. They rack up units every single week. When you do go purchase your picks package, enter the promo code “RIPPEE” to get 20 percent off any purchase. Buy it now, use their picks, make a profit and thank me (and SkyBox) later.
Bad: finishing the half
I am not even sure the above title completely articulates what I am inferring, but for the second consecutive game, Ole Miss’ poor play toward the end of the first half altered the score in the opponent's favor and dramatically shifted the momentum of the game.
With 6:03 remaining in the half, the Ole Miss offense began a drive in Oklahoma territory thanks to one hell of a play from Jared Ivey that forced a fumble he also recovered. With 2:47 remaining, Ole Miss faced a 4th & 1 from the Oklahoma five-yard line. At this point, The Rebels had out-gained the Sooners 164 to 143 and were 15 feet away from taking a 17-7 lead. A field goal attempt would-have in, in all likelihood, made it a 13-7 lead with just over two minutes left in the half. The fourth down attempt was blown up and Oklahoma proceeded to march 92 yards down the field for a touchdown to take a 14-10 lead into halftime.
I didn’t think the Rebels played a particularly crisp half of football in the first two quarters of this game, but given how the game had played out in the first 27-plus minutes of the first half, It was wild to me that Ole Miss somehow trailed at halftime.
In the loss to LSU, the Rebels led 17-7 with just under two minutes remaining in the first half, gave up a field goal, then immediately fumbled on their next offensive possession and yielded another field goal to enter the locker room only leading 17-13. I think this issue stems from a multitude of things, but Ole Miss has done itself no favors at the end of halves over the last two games. It greatly affected the eventual outcome of the LSU game and, at the time, I thought the end-of-half swing against the Sooners might be the final straw for Ole Miss.
We are thrilled to have C Spire as a sponsor of the Rippee Writes Newsletter and Podcast. It’s to upgrade your home internet to the best service in the market with C Spire Home Fiber. C Spire Home provides the most reliable internet service with 99.99% uptime. C Spire provides 1 Gigabit and 300 Megabit internet packages to homes across Mississippi, Birmingham, and southern Alabama regions. C Spire is also proud to announce the release of their brand new 2 Gigabit and 8 Gigabit home internet plans. Save yourself the hassle by not waiting for your internet connection to drop with the other guys. Call or go online to cspire.com/home today and use promo code “RIPPEE” at checkout for 1 month free service.
Good: defensive adjustments
The Ole Miss defense has been tremendous for most of this season. In the first half of this game, the Rebels committed far too many stupid penalties that extended drives for an Oklahoma offense missing its top five receivers, multiple linemen (the Sooners lost their left tackle in this game, too) and is led by a young but talented quarterback. Jackson Arnold hurt Ole Miss with his feet in the first half. Oklahoma ran for 125 yards in the first half as the Rebels were seemingly not as aggressive in sending pressure at Arnold, which aided him in the passing game too.
The second half was a different story. Arnold was sacked six times in the second half (nine total for the game), Oklahoma rushed for just 22 yards with 94 yards of total offense and scored zero points. Ole Miss clamped down on the Sooners by getting to Arnold more frequently in the second half. Suntarine Perkins had three sacks in this game. J.J Pegues and Princely Umanmielen had two. Oh, and the Rebels were without Walter Nolen in the second half, who left the game with an injury.
This defense was once again really good.
Bad: short-yardage situations on offense
This ties into the finishing halves note above. The Rebels simply aren’t good in short-yardage situations. It’s a reflection of the offensive line’s inability to get a push up front and consistently run block. I am not sure if there is a solution to this. I think this offensive line and running game sort of is what it is at this point, but a pair of failed fourth down conversion attempts in the first half kept Oklahoma in the game.
The fake sweep to Pegues, toss to Wells on the short side of the field at the end of the second quarter was brutal. Ole Miss called timeout before that snap to regroup, too. It’s indicative of the offense’s inability to convert short-yardage situations and the staff’s lack of solutions to solve the problem. Maybe there are some ways Ole Miss can get creative with its play calling to boost its running game as a whole. I am not really sure there is much the staff can do to fix the short-yardage struggles.
It makes me wonder if Kiffin will change how aggressive he is on fourth downs, particularly in field goal range. I don’t have the numbers to fully defend that assertion, but it has felt like that has been the case to some degree. Caden Davis already has 18 field goal attempts on the season. He only had 20 total in the 2023 regular season. With as good as the Ole Miss defense has been, despite how frustrating these short-yardage situations must be for Kiffin — one of the most aggressive coaches in college football — I wonder if we see an even more conservative approach over these last four games when it comes to going for it versus taking the points.
As a Rippee Writes subscriber, LB’s Meat Market will give you three 6 oz. bacon wrapped filets for $25. Just stop by, show proof of subscription and they’ll get you set up. Then go find your own favorites. It’s the best butcher shop in the world.
Good: pass protection
The coaching staff seemed pleased with the way the offensive line pass protected in this game. Ole Miss made a small tweak on the offensive line with Gerquan Scott playing right guard and Julius Buelow sliding out to right tackle in place of Micah Pettus. While this offensive line continues to struggle in the running game, an improvement in pass pro is certainly a positive development. I doubt it’s a coincidence that Dart also had one of his most effective games of the year throwing the ball.
After a bye week to work any of the previously injured offensive linemen back into the rotation (mostly Jeremy James and Caleb Warren), it seems apparent that the coaching staff is sticking with the same 5-6 guys up front. I am not sure what the one small adjustment of Pettus being bumped out of the starting five actually means (more on that a second), but this unit pass blocked well against a good defensive line.
Bad: Pettus a late scratch
Veteran right tackle Micah Pettus was not on the injury report last week, yet was a late scratch shortly before kickoff, though he appeared to be dressed out and on the sideline. Kiffin’s description of the situation in his postgame press conference was odd. He initially said that he learned shortly before kickoff that Pettus “said he couldn’t play.” When referencing the situation later on in the press conference, he said Pettus “decided not to play right before the game.”
I don’t really know what to make of this. That is certainly not a typical way for a coach to refer to a potential injury, and Pettus not showing up on the injury report all week seems odd. I have heard that Pettus has been playing through a couple of injuries this season. Pettus has been penalized frequently this year and I also heard he was not running with the first team offense in the two weeks of practice since the LSU game. I don’t really have much else to offer at this point. The whole thing is just odd.
Good: Ole Miss showed resolve
Things seemed pretty bleak at halftime for a team that hasn’t exactly responded well to self-inflicted adversity at other points in the season. Personally, I thought the game, and the season for that matter, was about to go completely sideways. But, to the Rebels' credit, they battled back and took control of the football game in the third quarter with a pair of stops sandwiched between two touchdown drives. If nothing else, that is a positive sign as the team enters the last four games of the season.
I think Ole Miss had only scored one second-half touchdown in SEC play entering this game — the fourth down catch and run from Tre Harris against Kentucky. So, to have two touchdown drives in the third quarter to take control of a game that Ole Miss could not afford to lose, is certainly a positive development.
Dart described the Rebels trailing at halftime as a bit of a gut check moment for the team.
“There was a lot of discussion in the halftime locker room,” Dart said. “A lot of us were pissed off. We felt like we should have been up by a lot more points. It was definitely a look in the mirror moment for us and I was really happy how we came out in the second half. I love how we came out and scored in the second half.”
I don’t think anything that happened in this game drastically changed my opinion of Ole Miss. I think the Rebels are a team with a limited offense due to a nonexistent running game and a struggling offensive line. I think that has put a lower ceiling on this season than originally anticipated. I don’t know how the Rebels will beat a team like Georgia without better offensive line play and better production from the running backs. But, for now, Ole Miss survived another week and now faces a road test at Arkansas. A win will at least get the Rebels to the Georgia game with a chance prove they can beat the best teams in college football and make a potential case for a College Football Playoff berth. It’s going to be a hell of a challenge for this team to win in Fayetteville.
In a must-win situation against Oklahoma, Ole Miss responded well to adversity. If nothing else, it sounds as if this team still believes it can right the ship.
“Coach Kiffin mentioned it, we are two plays away from being the number one team in the country,” Dart said. “We have a big challenge coming up this week and we need to continue to stack these (wins).”