Ole Miss Grades: The Report From The Tire Store

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Good grades, Commissioner.  I, too, felt better about the game in the light of a Sunday morning rather than the waning minutes of a Saturday night. 

Speaking of which, I know the conference has to worship at the altar of ESPN’s money, but just once I wish someone would have the courage to tell them to go back to Connecticut or Rhode Island or wherever they are from and pound sand.  It is ridiculous that we have players out playing college football on Saturday night at an hour which, if it was one day along on the calendar, the players would be breaking curfew.  Look, I know where ESPN is from every where is within 5 miles of every place else, Rhode Island itself being geographically smaller than Tuscaloosa County, and that every wide spot in the road has 2000 hotel rooms.  But where we live, it can be a long darn way to get home for a game that basically starts tonight and ends tomorrow morning.  And this was a relatively fast-paced game.   I digress….

Again, it is a measure of the program that we beat a division opponent by three scores, trailed for a total of 15 seconds and kept at least a two score lead through the second half, and the Grades are in the low B range.  But B=Good and beating Mississippi was good.  Nonetheless, as the head coach points out, the team needs to play to a standard of excellence, not to the level of the competition. Unquestionably there were areas where the Crimson Tide did not excel on Saturday night, whether it had to or not, which is troubling. 

Offense -- I might rate the offense even a little lower than you did.  Credit to Mississippi which was soundly coached and had a significant talent differential to overcome (giving up 30 pounds per man across the line has not been a formula for winning football since, say, Fred Sington played).  However, Mississippi put 7 or 8 players on the line of scrimmage, took a lot of risks - stunts, slants, run blitzes and probably some other things I don’t truly grasp all that well - and kept their team (sort of) in the game.  It certainly worked better than their base defense which gave up over 700 yards of offense to Texas.  On the other hand, rather than carve them up like a skillful surgeon with a mix of screen passes, play action and misdirection (counter, bootleg, end around, etc.) the offense seemed content just to bludgeon them to death with a caveman’s club.  Taking out sacks, the running game managed 4+ yards a carry.  If you are guaranteed four ypc, why would you ever pass?  (Any horrified Oregon fans who happen to be reading, I apologize for suggesting it.)  I’m going to give the coaching staff a pass here and say we didn’t do much creative because we didn’t have to.  But they HAVE to fix the attempting field goals in the red zone issue.  That bit us hard last year in November and will again this year if we don’t work it out.  I digress….

Defense -- I think that is a good grade for the defense.  Giving up the two long drives was not good.  Allowing two fourth down conversions was bad (though I think Williams stopped them short once and we got a lousy spot).  Mississippi covers talent gaps with lots of hurry up and odd plays.  On the whole, though, having our defense hold anyone to 14 points should be good enough to put us in at least Atlanta and probably Miami.  That earns a Good.

Special Teams -- Nothing to add to your excellent analysis, except to ask when was the last time we beat a conference opponent and the highest grades were reserved for the special teams?  With each game that we win the more comfortable and confident we become in our ST play.  It is hard to believe even as I type this, but Special Teams have become a strength -- shoot I don’t even close my eyes every time they take the field.  I don’t know if it is coaching, practice, weightlifting, maturity or what, probably a healthy combination of all, but Hurray for these guys.  Keep it up.

Officiating.  Well, Penn Wagers and the rest of the striped blind mice never fail to disappoint when it comes to disappointing.  In fairness, I’ll say this crew seems to get more than its share of close calls.  But the only advantage their replay team offers is that they seem to dress better than the on-field crew. 

The off week seems an appropriate time to comment on the schedule.  As in, when this year’s revised schedule came out after Missouri and Texas A&M entered the conference it led to a collective Crimson response of “blech”.  We have one home game in October and then not till just before Halloween, which is the prime month weather wise to be in Tuscaloosa.  (We did have some choice, with the “alternative” schedule having NO home games in October).  I understand that both of the new conference members wanted an Alabama game.  To get Missouri  Alabama at home (and the tv exposure and the RV caravan that comes with it) we dropped Vanderbilt, a quick 3-hour road trip up the interstate (and a short drive from the Tire Store HQ) for a 500-mile trip that starts with three hours of driving to get to the interstate from Tuscaloosa. LSU got a bye week before we traveled there to play. Our out of conference home games were Westerns Carolina and Kentucky plus Louisiana Monroe….  I know the league office thinks we will show up to see just about anyone, and generally they are correct, but let’s not mince words.  This year’s home schedule is a stinker and Coach Moore knows it.  Three digressions and you’re out….

At the time it came out, I was not a fan of where the bye week fell, either.  It would have been much better, I thought, to either match LSU’s off week, although that is terribly late, or to have it fall between trips to Missouri and Tennessee.  As it worked out, I think the off week is at a fortunate time.  Some of the injuries from Saturday and before need time to rest and heal, or where that is not possible (e.g. Fowler) we get a good week to practice some fundamentals and install some new players before going on the road.

Enjoy the off week.  There are several games Saturday with conference playoff implications and one (Arkansas @ Auburn) that is fascinating in a slow-down-and-stare-at-the-wreckage sort of way.  Lots of football yet to play, but given my choice, I’d take the results thus far without playing a down.

The Correspondent From The Tire Store