Ole Miss Football: Well Bama, That Was Embarrassing!
Ole Miss football traveled to Tuscaloosa to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday night. The Rebels showed up for a game but the end result was far worse than just a loss.
Right now, across the SEC there are fans licking their wounds. Ole Miss football is in turmoil over what turned into one of the ugliest games I’ve seen as a Rebel fan. What made it even worse was watching the replay the first thing Sunday morning. No I’m not a glutton for punishment. However, I was hoping I could find the few positives in the game our offensive coordinator Phil Longo spoke about in his post-game presser.
Of course, OHT will be handing out grades later this week and I’m trying to be as nice as possible. Trust me, if you’re faint of heart or the kind of person to send death threats, you may want to avoid reading that piece.
So, I watched the replay and came away with three things. Number one, we managed to make it thru the Bama game relatively injury free. Number two, this may be the best Alabama football team I’ve ever seen. And number three, the game was an amazingly clean game by yellow flag standards. Ole Miss had only 3 penalties for 30 yards. Maybe we should cheat to win? There I said it.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t care for Bama much at all. As a Rebel fan, the Bama game has however always been my favorite game of the season. It’s the one I always look forward to. It’s the game which gets marked on the calendar. Last night, was not what I expected at all from the game. Honestly, it didn’t look any better when I watched it the next morning.
It Was Ugly
Ole Miss Rebels Football
Of course, we all watched the same game so there is no need in beating a dead horse right now. Any loss hurts, but a 66-3 beat-down is unacceptable. Ole Miss fans expect and deserve more from this team.
Many Ole Miss fans have lost all hope and I can see why. However, maybe this will define the rest of our young teams season. I mean it was Bama, come on. And yes, Bama really is just that good.
Right now Ole Miss sits with a 2-2 record and one SEC loss in the toughest division in college football. The season is still young and there is still a lot to play for.
True, this team has to find positives to move forward and have any chance at recovering. The players and coaching staff have to know Rebel nation is still behind them.
However, anybody who watched the same game I did last night can see we have some serious issues. Although how the rest of this season plays out remains to be seen, Ole Miss football had better find its way quick. The Rebels have to travel to Auburn this week and the Weagles are coming off their own blow-out over Miss State.
It’s All In The Numbers
As bad as the score looked at the end of the Bama game you couldn’t expect the stats to be very much to look at either. They really aren’t pretty at all and certainly not what we’ve become spoiled over the past five years under Hugh Freeze. However, obviously that is a thing of the past. Now we are left with less than mediocre numbers against a great Bama team.
As reported by OleMissSports.com, even Matt Luke saw the same game we did.
"“They beat us soundly in all three phases. The biggest difference in the first half was the turnover for a touchdown. Third down was big for us all night. They were able to stay on the field and we were not.” ~ Head Coach Matt Luke"
It wasn’t close when you look at the final score and really wasn’t close after the first few possessions by either team. When a team beats you 66-3 even the stats will be ugly. However, you already know I’m a huge numbers guy so here goes.
Offensive Stats
Naturally, when we look at the stat-line the first thing we want to see is the quarterback numbers. On the night Shea Patterson went 14 of 29 for 185 yards with 2 INTs. Of course, we know Shea was under duress most of the night by an intense Bama pass rush. No, this wasn’t Shea Patterson’s best performance, but he still leads the SEC in passing.
As for receiving, the NWO was limited to the 29 targets with the 14 completions on the night. DaMarkus Lodge led all receivers with 72 yards on 2 receptions. However, DK Metcalf and Van Jefferson each had 3 receptions with 46 and 17 yards respectively. Dawson Knox had 2 receptions for 28 yards while AJ Brown had 1 catch. The RBs had the other 3 receptions in the game.
Longo exuded to some sort of rushing game. Jordan Wilkins did get the bulk of carries on the night with and eclipsed the 100 yard barrier with his 12 carries. However, after subtracting sacks and losses on runs the Ole Miss offense only netted 88 yards on the night. Sorry, but 88 yards is NOT close to a rushing game.
The one and only bright spot is the absence of penalties for the offense. Having Sean Rawlings back made all the difference in that respect. However there was a serious lack of offensive protection for the QB. Shea has to have time in the pocket to make good throws. It was apparent Saturday night he had none.
Defensive Stats
Ugly. That’s the best thing I can come up with and it took me the better part of 24 hours to get here. This defense is young we know. However, the defense was ineffective at best against the best offense in the nation. When you give up 66 points in any game it’s really really bad. Oh yeah Rebel nation, it’s even worse than I want to even come close to acknowledging. Just look at the numbers.
Total defense for the Rebels was a nightmare, hence the 66 points. On the night the biggest number which sticks out is the 613. That’s the total defense for the Rebels. Sure, it may be Bama, however its way too many yards to contend in the SEC. We have talent on defense but last night there was no plan which could stop the Tide.
After the game against Cal a lot of Ole Miss fans expected a much better performance from the defense against Bama. No, it was the most points given up by a Ole Miss defense since 1979. It was bad, really bad. However, we need to look for positives. There is a lot of talent on the relatively young Ole Miss defense, however we have a limited amount of solid depth.
Ole Miss had a difficult time Saturday night stopping Bama’s rushing attack and Jalen Hurts had his best passing effort of the season thus far. From what I can see is this defense has a lot of potential. However, they also have an incredible amount of work to fix the problems and not much time to do it.
Can we expect a better performance this week against Auburn? I think so but it could be as ugly as the Bama beat-down. Ole Miss travels down on the plains this Saturday to take on the Auburn Tigers in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 11am CT and will be televised on the SEC Network. Hotty Toddy.