By Brant Daughtry

What Almost Was

Ole Miss is coached by the sentient rubber band known as Lane Kiffin, an offensive genius and loose cannon who will is a threat to put up insane amounts of points and also say something into a microphone that makes you scratch your head, and he knows it. I love the guy personally. He’s in his fourth season at Ole Miss, and his offense is as potent as ever. Outside of a very weird loss at Alabama, Ole Miss has yet to score less than 24 points, and have put up more than 30 in four of their five wins.

Ole Miss had dreams of competing for the SEC West this season, but they have proven once again that they are Ole Miss, and will probably never reach that mountain top. As good as they are, they may just never be good enough to be Alabama. They are however, 5-1 and ranked 13th in the country. Their season still has a chance to be significantly more successful than a usual one, and this upcoming game will have a lot to do with that.

The defense at Ole Miss is, like most teams with offensive-minded head coaches, controlled entirely by whoever is defensive coordinator at the time. This year, it’s former Alabama scapegoat Pete Goulding. While he was sub-par for what Alabama is used to, he’s been an upgrade for Ole Miss, who’s defense has gone from historically bad to giving up 24 points a game. With an offense like this, that’s a win most of the time.

Said offense is captained by Jaxson Dart, a guy that Ole Miss tried to replace through the transfer portal, and he just wouldn’t let them. After bringing in two QB transfers, Dart was named the returning starter before the season, and he has not disappointed. He’s thrown for over 1,600 yards on the year, and has 12 touchdowns to just two interceptions. He’s also a threat running the ball, as he has almost 400 yards and another four touchdowns on the ground.

Players to Watch For: 

Running back Quinshon Judkins, #4- Judkins is a diamond in the rough, and a kid out of high school that badly wanted to play at Auburn. He played high school football at Pike Road, a school about 30 minutes outside of Auburn, but the regime at the time decided to not recruit him, instead getting Jarquez Hunter. There are all sorts of rumors about the decision to not go after Judkins, but it’s one that the current team has to regret. While he hasn’t gotten off to as fantastic a start as he had last season, Judkins is still having a great season. He’s got just over 500 total yards on the year, and leads Ole Miss with seven touchdowns.

Linebacker Suntarine Perkins, #4- Perkins is a super talented edge rusher who’s growing into a role as a game breaker. A member of the latest crop of freshman fro Ole Miss, he was Mr. Football for the state of Mississippi as a senior in high school, mostly for his work as a tailback, so he’s obviously an incredible athlete. He does a little bit of everything for the Rebs. They love sending him on blitzes up the middle, using him on twist stunts with bigger interior guys, and they’re not afraid to drop him into coverage. He leads the team with 3.5 sacks this year, and will look for more against an Auburn team that has struggled to pick up pressure off the edge this season.

This game will have national attention for a few storylines. It’s no secret that Lane Kiffin and Auburn flirted back and forth before Lane decided he’d stay in Oxford. Personally, I think he’s waiting on a bigger job. He wants to win trophies, and I don’t think he’ll do it Ole Miss. He’s waiting on one of the major jobs to come open, specifically, the Alabama job, at least I think.

Another storyline is that Hugh Freeze will be facing off against his former team, a team that he took to spectacular heights before crashing rapidly, then being fired for entirely non-football reasons. They do not like him in Oxford. His recruiting practices and personal miscues set them back several years, and it took a while for them to climb out of that hole.

To Auburn people though, that should matter very little. Kiffin is not the head coach, and Hugh Freeze hasn’t been at Ole Miss for a while now. The story line to focus on here is the distinct lack of offensive direction. The passing attack that Auburn has been trotting out lately has been abysmal, and it’s to a point where you can’t blame it solely on the players. Yes, Auburn has a bad roster. The receivers aren’t fast enough or strong enough or athletic enough to get open all the time. The quarterback has regressed from being a star in the Big 10 two years ago. But there are also several problems with the decisions and game plan that must get fixed.

The RPO game was Freeze’s bread and butter at Ole Miss, and there seems to be a weird mix of underusing it in some games and over-relying on it in others. There are times to use it, getting your quarterback in rhythm with it early, or using it when you need to get a drive started. But, in the LSU game, they continued to use it in ways that have proven to be ineffective this year. I hate the RPO fade. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

Whatever “offensive genius” Hugh Freeze is billed as, part of running a team, game planning, is finding out what you are good at with the pieces you have, and playing to their strengths to win the game. Right now, this team is not built to have the style of passing attack the coaching staff wants to have. Instead of stubbornly trying to force square pegs into round holes, this staff must realize the position it’s in and adjust accordingly. Hugh Freeze will not be fired after this season, even if Auburn doesn’t win another game. But he has to prove at some point that he’s learned from his mistakes, or the good will he has at the moment will evaporate quickly.