Ole Miss: Takeaways from the mess in Atlanta

A mess, maybe. But, a win makes it a beautiful mess indeed.

Before the Ole Miss vs. Boise State game in Atlanta last night,  if the football fairy walks up to a group of Ole Miss fans and says: “Hey fellas, here’s the deal — do you want to win 35-13, have your quarterback throw for 387 yards and four touchdowns and the defense dominate the entire game – how’s that sound?”

Don’t even tee it up. 10 times out of 10, absolutely. . . but here people are compaining about it. A lot of that complaining is revolving around the offense and QB Bo Wallace.

As a general rule of thumb, nothing is ever as good or bad as it seems; reality usually falls somewhere in the middle — which is most certainly the case from Thursday night as far as the Rebel offense is concerned. It’s not as bad as it was in the first half, and it’s not as good as it was in the final quarter.

Interceptions are one things (well, in this case I suppose they were three things), but the mental mistakes have to decrease for the No. 18 ranked team in the country. 10 false starts are almost a laughable matter. Is it the offense adjusting to new center Ben Still? A fluke? Aaron Morris just not being smart? It’s a bit concerning for the Rebels that the team had more penalty yards, 78, than rushing yards, 71. Penalties just added insult to the anything that could go wrong in the first half on offense did. 4th and 1 snaps were rolled back, 2nd and 1 holding calls – you name it.

Freeze got away from the run game in the first half, but again it’s hard to run on 1st and 20, 2nd and 15, 3rd and 8. Also, the usual plays to the flat that Freeze so often dials up are a relative extension to the running game that don’t get added to that number. In the second half there was some room for excitement when Mark Dodson broke loose for a 19-yard touchdown run, and Jordan Wilkins pounded away a first down or two between the tackles. I wouldn’t be too upset with that number, it will fluctuate through the season.

Cody Core and Laquon Treadwell both finished the day with over 100 yards receiving, to go along with a pair of touchdowns. Evan Ingram had a flash move or two, but was certainly an afterthought; I wouldn’t expect that to continue, he will be a huge part of this offense.

Here’s the bottom line with the offense: it sinks or swim with Bo. Fans can scream for Kinkade, Buchanan, Liggins, and whoever else they want to see under center, but realistically Bo Wallace is the best option. He may have a slow release, some awfully timed decisions, and maybe need a haircut — but he’s what we have. Wallace can sling it, and has the potential — if he stays in the perimeters of the offense — to have a big year; Ole Miss fans shouldn’t be so quick to jump off the ship yet.

Is it scary that Wallace will face a defense to the likes of an Alabama in less than a month? You bet. But that bridge should be crossed when the time comes.

Flip over to the other side of the ball things begin to look a little brighter; the defense was locked in all night. At times, at looked like a montage of clips from the old NFL BLITZ. Leaping one-handed interceptions, hard hits, hell I think I saw a body slam.

https://vine.co/v/MlV2vObKAxE

Tony Connor, Cody Pruitt, Robert Nkemdiche, C.J. Johnson. . . the gang was all there. And here’s a scary thought: it was domination without Denzel Nkemdiche and Serderius Bryant, who took an early curtain call after a late hit ejection to which he says he “barely touched” quarterback Grant Hedrick — although the replay did seem to justify the call, at last as the rule is written.

Just as the Boise defense is not as good as the Ole Miss offense made them look early in the game, I’m afraid there may be a touch of that in this scenario as well. The Rebel defense is young, fast, deep and very fun to watch, but I think Grant Hedrick’s four interceptions have some blame to spread around.

As frustrating as the game was to watch for Ole Miss fans, it had to be twice as bad for those hailing from Idaho. Hedrick was 36 of 46, but four interceptions, one in the end zone, prevented the Broncos from getting into any offensive rhythm – not to mention the lack of traction they were able to get in the trenches. Neither team’s offensive line played well, but it seemed the Ole Miss defensive line had a vacation home or two in the Bronco’s backfield.

With Wallace’s struggles, some are insinuating that Ole Miss will now be forced to win with defense — similar to the Ed Orgeron. The difference, in Orgeron’s entire tenure the offense never scored over 30 points. Even a struggling offense by Freeze put up 35 (it was hard to see where the line of garbage points stopped and started). This offense can score points just as the defense can prevent them from being scored. The sample size isn’t big enough to write either off.

My takeaways from the game initially after leaving the Georgia Dome where as follows:

After letting it marinate, here is the only takeaway for Ole Miss fans: It’s a neutral site win over a respected team. It’s been a long time since an Ole Miss fan base could put forward complaints about beating a team like Boise State in the opener and being disappointed with it; I think that says a lot about how far Hugh Freeze has brought this program in two seasons. The bar has been raised, and it will be interesting to see this group try to reach it as the season goes on.