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OM Defense

The Ole Miss defense is called by John Thompson, he of the famed “minnow bucket” defense that often sees folks moving around like crazy pre-snap, only to ultimately be at their assignment at the snap. Weird. He’s been the DC at Arkansas and South Carolina among other places. They’ve struggled some this year, as they are a young unit, giving up 30 or more in each of their last 3 games (UF, Vandy and Missouri), but the effort against UF was actually solid, as they had been rolling.

The Ole Miss DL sports an emerging SEC star in So. DE Greg Hardy. At 6-5, 255, Hardy is a lanky pass rusher who’s already snagged 35 tackles (3rd on the team) with 7 TFLs including 3 sacks. He’ll be a tough matchup for our OTs. The interior of their DL doesn’t have a ton of productive depth, but they’ve got some size and will try and tie up our young OL. They have some good experience inside.

At LB, the 3 listed starters in their depth chart for this game are all first year JUCO transfers, due in large part to the departure of their top two LBs, especially 1st round draft pick Patrick Willis. SLB Ashlee Palmer leads the team in tackles with 41 and pass breakups with 3. The real oddity of this group is backup MLB Chris Strong. A true frosh, Strong weighs in at 6-2, 280. I watched his robust self drill Tim Tebow on a bootleg last week, so he can obviously move.

The best player in the OM secondary is SS Jamarca Sanford. At 5-10, 200, he’s kinda squatty compared to many of today’s top safeties. He’s 2nd on the team in tackles, has forced a fumble and blocked a kick. Kind of a do-everything guy. He’s started every game but 1 (in his Fr. season) in the last 3 seasons. Jr. LCB Dustin Mouzon is having a nice season. He’s already got a 99-yd INT return for a TD this year in addition to 4 TFLs and a sack from his CB spot…not too shabby. At 5-11, 175, he’s a smallish CB. The opposite CB is another story. At 6-2, 210, So. Cassius Vaughn is bigger than either of the two starting safeties. FS Kendrick Lewis is decent but inexperienced.

Bottom Line: The Ole Miss back 7 doesn’t have much experience. Heck, the front 4 doesn’t either. This is a unit that’s trying to improve and they’re making strides, with the UF effort being their best outing yet, which isn’t great considering they still gave up 30. They’re still struggling (according to Orgeron) with wrapping up and making tackles. Look at these numbers in terms of statistics: 91st nationally in rush defense, 86th nationally in pass eff. defense, 105th in pass defense and a shocking 107th in total defense. They don’t do a great job of pressuring the QB, with only 5 sacks on the season. This is a defense that we should be able to move the ball against. Look for us to put a strain on their LBs with our RBs in the flats. Bama struggled with that aspect of our game all night. Ole Miss has struggled against screens all season (Orgeron said those exact words this week) and that’s something that’s been a staple of the Bobo regime to date. Given their struggles tackling this year, the hard running of Moreno and Brown could pay off.

Key matchup to watch when we have the ball: The UGA running game is in capable hands with Moreno and Brown both playing well. I think the thing to watch for in this game is the continued development of Stafford and his connection with the WRs. He, Bailey and Massaquoi certainly seemed to be on the same page (for the most part) last week and if they continue to improve, that means good news for the running game. If Stafford avoids the turnovers he’s shown he’s prone to over his career, we should be able to move the ball some and hopefully get some points on the board early. That certainly set the tone last week.

The OM Game Overall

Alright, let’s not sugarcoat this. This is in all likelihood the worst team in the SEC. As an aside, it’s weird that two of the top arguable candidates for that spot at this point are AU and UT (since MSU beat AU). They were beaten handily by Vandy already this season. They’re struggling on defense and they’ve yet to really get the offense going the way they want to. If we’re going to be competing for the SEC East title, this is a team that we should handle. I’m not saying we will necessarily, as we have a history of playing down (and up for that matter) to our opponents, I’m just saying we should.

Ole Miss has struggled to capitalize this season. In 16 trips to the redzone, they’ve managed 5 TDs and 5 FGs to go with a flurry of mistakes…missed FGs, TOs, etc. They’re last in the SEC in rushing offense. They’re 11th in scoring. They’re last in sacks allowed. They’ve passed the ball decently, but haven’t faced a secondary approaching what they’ll see Saturday. On defense, it’s more of the same, lots of double digit conference rankings in statistical categories. Just more evidence that if we play smart, sound football like we saw last week in Tuscaloosa, we should come out with a solid win.

Normally I’d say this is a perfect opportunity for a trap game as we’re coming off an emotional win on the road (again) and will be heading off to another big road game in Knoxville next week, with little ol’ Ole Miss sandwiched in there, begging to be overlooked. Unfortunately for Ole Miss, they appear to have broken out the grade-A effort a week early. Given how well they played against UF, it shouldn’t be difficult for the UGA coaches to get this team motivated and focused this week. If Ole Miss can play with UF for 4 quarters, they certainly aren’t a team we can go to sleep on. The scary thing about that game is it’s not like UF turned the ball over a bunch to keep Ole Miss in it, they just fought and scrapped and eventually started busting big plays. The longer they hang around, the more they’ll start to believe.

Positional Notes

It seemed like every catch Sean Bailey made was incredibly important. Just very clutch. The same goes for Massaquoi. I thought those two set the tone on that opening drive when they both made great grabs to extend the drive. Excellent performance from our WRs.

On the other hand, Tripp Chandler struggled through a rough game. It was great to see him pull in that last catch on 4th down though to pull us into field goal range. Hopefully he’ll rebound and put that behind him, as we really need him to play well.

Reshad Jones looked really solid…again. That kid is going to be a player. He reminds me a lot of Deon Grant, the GA native that went to UT.

I don’t think you can say enough about the performance of Clint Boling. This is a true freshman that came in ready to contribute despite the fact almost no one gave him a chance to do so. He injures his ankle so bad last week that he was hobbling around in a boot and he still guts it out and plays about as well as some upperclassmen we’ve had come through in recent years. Just amazing.

How nasty was that little slip move Moreno put on Mitchell last week when he skipped sideways at full speed and the poor fella didn’t even touch him? Moreno’s got amazing natural ability, but he’s still got room for improvement. The last play he was in the game was the 3rd down prior to us kicking our last FG. On that play, his role was to pick up the blitz. He dove at the blitzer’s feet, completely missing him. Stafford got drilled right as he threw it (completion to Henderson). As Moreno starts to be able to execute the little things like that, he’ll start to get even more touches. As much as I LOVE his enthusiasm, I hope he doesn’t do anything to cost us a 15-yd penalty with his demonstrative nature. He was toeing the line a little on Saturday.

Random Thoughts

Mike Patrick is just weird. First there was the whole Britney Spears comment. That was just surreal and I honestly don’t know what to say about it other than I loved the fact Blackledge was perfectly content to leave him hanging. In addition to that, I honestly don’t think he has any idea what constitutes pass interference. On the play where the official flagged Bama when Castille was basically taking Goodman’s jersey off, Patrick said he just didn’t see anything, no reason to throw that flag. Then, on a call where Prince Miller mugged DJ Hall on a ball our coaches were (wrongly) arguing was uncatchable, he decides to announce he thinks the uncatchable ball aspect of that rule is stupid. What? It’s like he doesn’t understand football. With that performance, he’s now shot straight to the top of the list for the role of play-by-play guy I’m most likely to be weirded out by. He would of course be paired with the dynamic color tandem of Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan in a 3-man booth of annoyance.

What’s the deal with this football season? It’s like some weird bizarro-SEC. UK is tied for the East lead and ranked in the top 15 nationally. SC is good. Vandy might make a bowl game (although not likely). UT has gotten shellacked twice. AU is struggling to stay .500. Heck, Miss St. is even gaining votes in one of the polls. I’m pretty sure that was one of the signs of the apocalypse.

I’m sure you’ve all seen or heard about OkSt’s head coach blowing up in his press conference and going after a newspaper writer. I was surprised to see him do it, but I applaud him standing up for his player if he feels they were publicly wronged. While I was surprised at Coach Gundy’s outburst, I was even more surprised to hear the response of some of the media voicing their disapproval and saying that he should have handled that out of the public eye. I’m sorry, wasn’t he doing what he did precisely because his player had been dressed down in the article in that very same public eye (which was largely based on rumor and hearsay)? Yes, he probably should have read a prepared statement to keep his emotions in check, but I have to applaud a coach standing up for his players.

Be glad that apparently no one told Louisville’s defense directions to any of their games so far. If they could stop anyone, Louisville would likely be 4-0 right now and still ranked in the top 10. That would mean WVA, Louisville and Rutgers would all be in the top 10 or so, with South Florida and Cincinnati both right on the cusp of the top 25. That would make the Big East arguably the top conference in the country. Again, that would be if Louisville wasn’t unconscionably bad on defense. As it is, you’d amazingly have to rank the Big East ahead of the ACC, which has really fallen on hard times with the demise of FSU and Miami. I think that means VT hasn’t played in a really good conference…ever.

Munson turns 85 on Friday. I suppose it’s OK for him to miss road games given that fact. I thought Scott Howard handled that final call about as well as he could have, but you just can’t help but wonder what little gem Munson would’ve thrown out there, something about folks rending Houndstooth...actually I shouldn’t even fathom a guess as to what Munson would say. He had no idea what a hobnail boot was before that popped out.

Speaking of that final play, it was like a mix of two recent GT passes both in execution and in end result. One, the Bobo to Corey Allen TD in ATL back in ’97. The other was the Shockley to McClendon pass two years ago. All 3 were just beautiful. Of course, the one from ’05 was still a couple of minutes from the end of the game, as Reggie Ball still had to really destroy GT fans with his INT at the goal line. Thank you Tim Jennings.

Don’t be surpised if AU gives FL’s offense some fits. AU’s O has been horrid, but they still have some talent on D, especially at DE, so look for them to tee off on Tebow.

Have a safe weekend,
Jody