This Saturday, the No. 9 Ole Miss Rebels will play the No. 13 Missouri Tigers at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
The game will mark the return to Oxford for Missouri's quarterback Austin Simmons, wide receiver Cayden Lee and cornerback Chris Graves Jr. for the first time since transferring last January.
Simmons and Lee, as well as running back Jamal Roberts, are key contributors to a Missouri offense that can give Golding's defense trouble in multiple ways.
This season, Golding's defense has struggled to adjust and correct mistakes in the game. Let's look at what the focus needs to be to save the game in case Missouri successfully produces against Ole Miss' first defensive game plan.
How Missouri Can Attack Ole Miss' Defense
Both Missouri's passing and rushing attacks could create trouble for Pete Golding and the Rebels' defense.
So far in the season, Simmons has passed for 1,434 yards with 14 touchdowns and just a single interception. Wide receivers Cayden Lee and Donovan Olugbode have combined for more than 1,000 of those receiving yards and have scored 11 of Simmons' 14 touchdowns. Jamal Roberts has rushed for 828 yards and eight touchdowns this season.
Ole Miss has had struggles defending both the run and the pass at times this season. The worst example was the loss to Florida, in which the Rebels gave up more than 300 rushing yards and just under 200 passing yards, despite Florida quarterback Aaron Philo having just eight completed passes past the line of scrimmage.
What Pete Golding and Ole Miss Have to Do to Win
In every Power 4 game the Rebels have played this year, they have been outscored in the second half. Although that statistic includes Vanderbilt, which scored a touchdown late in the fourth quarter to reach that mark after Ole Miss had already taken its foot off the gas because it was clear it had earned a blowout victory.
Ole Miss survived to win against Louisville and No. 22 LSU mainly because of quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and the explosive Ole Miss offense. However, Golding cannot rely on the team winning games consistently in shootouts, especially in games like the one against Florida, when Ole Miss started slowly and were never able to recover the deficit.
Against Vanderbilt, even if the Commodores' offense isn't as competitive as some of the other teams mentioned, Golding's defense proved it's capable of dominating an opposing offense. Golding just needs a way to get them to that level of play when they don't open the game with it.
Missouri will be one of the best and most efficient offenses Ole Miss will have faced so far this season. Florida put up 52 points in the win against Ole Miss, and Missouri defeated the Gators 45-17 the very next week.
Florida ruined any chance Ole Miss had of escaping The Swamp with a win with a 35-point second half. Following the game, Ole Miss linebacker Keaton Thomas said, "Some guys took it, and other guys didn't," when asked about Golding calling the team out at halftime.
Missouri beat Florida in a similar way to how Florida beat Ole Miss. They went up early and ran the ball with Roberts to keep and grow their lead. If the Tigers are off to the same hot start against Ole Miss, it'll be up to Pete Golding's coaching to not let the Rebels quit in the same way they did against Florida.
The talent is there for Ole Miss' defense to be great; that's been evident since preseason, but it finally fully showed up against Vanderbilt. The issue has been keeping them motivated when things aren't going perfectly, and it's on Pete Golding to instill a never-quit mindset going forward in his defense.
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