Jordan Ta’Amu continues to get beaten up every time Ole Miss comes up against a quality defense. He took a pretty solid pounding in this game. Predictably, the Rebels struggled to throw the ball against the Tigers’ talented secondary.
The one signal of hope for the Rebels was their run game. Scottie Phillips managed to rack up 96 yards on just 16 carries. Perhaps he should’ve gotten the ball a little more often, but the score line made that difficult for the Ole Miss coaching staff.
If anyone behind Vanderbilt could have won this week, we would’ve dropped the Commodores. Beating Tennessee State at home by four points is not a quality result by any stretch of the imagination.
It was a strange game for Kyle Shurmur. He went 22 of 29 for 297 yards, but he also threw two picks. His errors kept this game closer than it needed to be. Vanderbilt needs to clean up the mistakes if they don’t want to free fall this season.
There’s not a lot to say about the Tigers this week since they enjoyed a bye. Let’s hope Drew Lock had his arm on ice for a full seven days. He’s going to sling it a lot down the stretch.
Anyone in Starkville still think coaching doesn’t matter? This team is really struggling to deal with Dan Mullen’s departure. Joe Moorhead may get it turned around eventually, but this is not a promising start.
Nick Fitzgerald struggled mightily against his old coach on Saturday. He was a putrid 11 of 26 for just 98 yards passing. In fairness to the quarterback, his receivers didn’t do a very good job of getting open. Still, it’s obvious the Bulldogs aren’t good enough to be in the upper-echelon of the SEC. They need to play better to stay in the middle of the league’s standings.