The Ole Miss Coaching Search

After reading Blutarsky's outstanding headline regarding the Ole Miss search, I did a little early morning reading about candidates for the job.

It's not that Ole Miss has never made a good hire. It's just they can't get out of their own way.

David Cutcliffe was a well tenured offensive coordinator for Tennessee going into the National Title game in 1998 with ties to the Manning family. It was a logical hire that worked until Cutcliffe's recruiting fell apart. Tommy Tuberville was a tenured Defensive Coordinator for Miami with 3 national title rings, and he was a DC at Texas A&M when they went 10-0-1 in 1994. The hire worked for them until a better offer came along.

Ed Orgeron had a national title ring, but he had never even been a coordinator...and he had a checkered past. Houston Nutt was being run out of his last job on a rail. And the other 5 coaches following Vaught's retirement were just bad.

Who will they hire? Athlon has a very comprehensive list which includes everyone except Terry Bowden (Pictured above). My only issue with the Athlon list is that it lists Mike Leech as a riskier hire than coaches at Southern Miss and Florida International.

If I were running their search, my top 3 candidates would be Leach, Malzahn and Rodriguez. Malzahn's resume is closest to their prior successes...a proven coordinator with a national title. Rodriguez was a horrific fit at Michigan, but winning at West Virginia without an in state recruiting base is a major accomplishment. Leach put forth a consistent winner despite major recruiting, facility and logistical drawbacks.

Would Leach help Ole Miss pass Bama and LSU in the West? No. But there's no coach in America who could do that and not leave them for a bigger job. Leach could build a program that would consistently beat MSU, Texas A&M, the non-conference tomato cans OM schedules, Vandy, Kentucky and Missouri. He could also put them on equal footing with South Carolina and Arkansas. That's enough to build a consistent 8 win program which Ole Miss hasn't been since desegregation.

Having said all of that...my real hope is they hire Terry Bowden. The comedic potential is better.

PWD

Ole Miss Review

A conference road win, one that was much, much more dominant than the score indicated.  An overwhelming defensive performance.  Coach Richt going old school.  Didn't it feel like 2003 or so?  A relatively close game that never felt like it was close at all?

The Good:

• The Defense. Second straight game allowing less than 200 yards offense.
• Pressure on the QB.  Are we finally comfortable running the 3-4?  We brought pressure from multiple spots with multiple players.  We dropped Abry Jones into underneath coverage more than once (he almost got a pick on a tipped pass).  We played stifling pass defense, with two very notable exceptions.  We got stronger as the game wore on.  Very happy with the defense.
• Coaching.  Going to Mitchell right after he got a hold that negated a long run was genius.  The game plan was well thought out and we deviated from it to keep doing what worked.  The only gripe I have is that we didn't try to put another TD on the board when we were in the red zone early in the 4th quarter, instead opting for merely running the ball and the clock.
• Richard Samuel catching passes.  For all his flaws as a ball carrier, he is that good as a receiver. 
• Carlton Thomas' pass blocking.  If Crowell learns to block like Thomas, he'll be as complete a running back as Moreno.  Thomas pass blocks like a much bigger guy.
• Run blocking.  Crowell and Thomas both made plenty of second effort yardage, but they were doing so after rushing 5 yards untouched.  The 29 yard Crowell run on 3rd and 9 from the Georgia 2 yard line was the best blocked run play we've had all season.
• Guys getting into the game due to injuries and ballin'.  Gilliard, Vasser, Bennett, and Lee come to mind immediately.

The Bad:

• Edge contain. Yes, Ole Miss only gained 34 yards rushing (the running backs had more like 60 on 16 attempts), but the edge players were bailed out time and again by Williams and Rambo.  Washington and Vasser had a couple of nice stops, but both sucked inside too often. Oh, and before anyone comments about the long swing pass that the holding penalty negated, I say without the hold, that is a two yard gain, at most.
• This is a corollary to the previous statement, but the defense's ability to read where the ball is has to improve.  Weis will eat us alive with Demps and Rainey.  Johnson will do so with all of his offensive players.
• Droppsies.  Some were on Murray due to poor throws.  More were on the receivers.  Troupe and King both dropped balls that were just about as easy catches as you would expect.  Charles and Bennett both missed balls that hit them in the hands, as well.

The Ugly:

• Special teams.  I'm not talking about Walsh's misses (although, since I brought it up...), I'm talking about punt coverage and onside kicks.  On the season, we have given up a TD to Rerun on a fake punt.  We have given up a TD on a punt return reverse that I heard people in the stands yelling about before the ball was fielded.  Don't get me started with the onside kick stuff.  Also, we don't set up punt returns or rush the punter well.

Overall, this is the kind of game that in the last couple of years would have likely been an utter nail biter.  Ole Miss is about as good as last year's Colorado team, but they are certainly better than 2009 Arizona State team that we had to beg, steal and borrow to beat on a last second field goal.   

I'd also like to make a note about Crowell and how his running changed later in the game.  Of course, it changed.  He ran the ball double the number of times he ran in any one game this season.  It is easy for me to judge that, but the fact of the matter is he is an 18 year old that has to do many, many things for his game to be where we, his coaches, and he want it to be.  Learning what it feels like to get 25+ carries is important for him to know what he has to improve. Judging from Boise State to now, any reason to think he won't?

TD

3 Questions Answered: Ole Miss

Turned out my concerns of this being another Colorado game were unfounded. Outside of a two trick play drive and the continued lack of competent special teams play/coaching, this was a total and utter domination by Georgia. 

1. Can the Georgia team that showed up last week and against South Carolina (minus the freebie points) do so for a third consecutive week?  Three strong performances in a row.  We gave them freebie points, but that was all we gave them.  The defense is really coming into their own and the offense is competent, mostly, at moving the ball.  There are places for improvement, particularly in the passing offense, but this was a good road win.  Instead of playing to the level of the competition, which wasn't very good, to be sure, we came out and controlled the game from the kickoff. 
2. Does Mason get in the game anytime other than late in mop up duty? Coachspeak. 
3. Do we finally acknowledge that we have to be a bit more innovative to give the QB time to run the offense since, you know, we are almost down to playing recruits on the offensive line? Murray only got sacked twice, with one of them coming on a Frank Roger Dorn'esque olé by Crowell.  As I said above, we have some improvement in the passing offense to go, with one of those areas being blocking for Murray.  On the upside, the rush blocking was very strong.  I'd still like to see a few more screen plays for Charles, and the swing pass was open nearly every time we snuck a RB to the flats giving potential there.  Murray's footwork is a mess a times, which is exacerbating the protection issue, but all of that is improving.  

One final thing, I don't know why we don't run the play action with Mitchell running deep play 5 times a game. Even if we don't throw it to him, it always has to suck at least one guy (and probably keeps a safety honest) out of coverage.  That is as money a play as we have.

TD

Ole Miss Preview

I really struggled with this preview.  I had planned to do a breakdown of both teams, using stats and such.  However, I stumbled on one stat that was glaring, so unreal, that I decided to just use it and move on:

Ole Miss 2011 Total offense: 757 yards.  That is 252.3 yards per game.  For comparison sake, Georgia is gaining over 125 yards per game more.  Ole Miss has played the number 10 (Vandy..what?), 46 (BYU) defenses by total yards, plus DI-AA Southern Illinois (who the Rebels didn't exactly pile it up on with 315 yards).  Before you fret about that, remember, Elon gained nearly 100 more yards against Vandy than Ole Miss did.  Utah doubled Ole Miss's offensive output against BYU.

The key to this game really is sound defense.  On offense, run the ball and run it some more (they are stout in the first quarter on run defense, but fade through the game).  Take shots down field, but don't get fancy.  They aren't geared to spread the field and love to run the ball on third and anything.  Just about a vanilla as you could imagine. Defensively, use the meat upfront to create match up issues for them.  Force them into making mistakes, since they are so good at that.

It is time to get the road mojo back.  This is just about as good a road game as you could ask for in the conference to do so.

The Grove

I shot this in the Grove in 2006. That's me laughing and singing into the mic. You can practically smell the bourbon when you watch the clip.



Damn I wish I was going this weekend. #Jealous

PWD