The Arkansas game in Week 3 saw one of the worst performances of No. 4 Ole Miss football's defense this season.
The day was a brutal reality check for the Rebels' defense, and fortunately, it propelled them on the right path. Coach Lane Kiffin has just one person to thank for doing so: defensive coordinator Pete Golding.
In his press conference previewing Washington State Week, Kiffin opened up on how Golding gave the Rebels' defense a nice, long talk just at the right time to prevent them from crumbling.
"Well, I think after that Arkansas game, they had a hard meeting with Coach Golding and the players and for a long time on Sunday night and, I think we played better pass defense. I also think Arkansas is really good on offense, you know, and they’ve done that to a lot of people," Kiffin said Monday.
"So, again, I kind of look at the whole thing and not just stat rankings, kind of like how they do, you know, with the committee and records and they put teams here instead of just how stats are. We look at the analytics and the metrics. You know, there’s a really good one. I think it’s FPI, you know, where they put the offense, defense, special teams and they rank the teams. You look at that."
"To me, that really shows. It doesn’t focus on records only. It really focuses on who you played in that and how you played. And was it late in the game and all those things in the analytics and the metrics. And, so I look at that instead of just the rankings, and that would show you obviously Arkansas’s elite offense."
Praising Arkansas' offense might be one way to look at it, but the Rebels' defense managed to fend off a sturdy-looking LSU offense. LSU averaged 3.10 yards per carry when adjusting for sack yardage against Golding's defense.
That being said, the remaining games on Ole Miss's slate against Georgia and Oklahoma will be the toughest tests, which will bring out the good, bad, and ugly out of Ole Miss's defense.
Both teams' offenses are elite, and Golding will need much more than pep talks to get them through those without losing.