Ole Miss QB Bo Wallace is one of the SEC's best. (Spruce Derden-USA TODAY Sports)
Ole Miss’ dream season took a giant hit last week when the LSU Tigers scored late and handed the Rebels their first loss of the season.
The loss, however, didn’t seem to hurt the Rebels too much as they came out ranked No. 4 in the first College Football Playoff poll.
The problem for Hugh Freeze’s team is that they now have to bounce back against the team that was No. 3 in the first CFP ranking—the Auburn Tigers. The one good thing for Ole Miss is they catch the Tigers in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“They [LSU] deserve credit. From watching the film, we did not play our best game,” said Freeze. “That’s always disappointing. However, that’s life in the SEC. The great thing is we have an opportunity to bounce back this week at home and get our kids ready for another very difficult task with Auburn coming. They’re a special team. They’re as good or better interior defensively as anyone we’ve seen.
”They’re dangerous when they pull it at quarterback. They’re physical, and they get it at running back. Their offensive line is solid. They’re a solid team all the way around. Gus (Malzahn) and his staff have done a wonderful job. We have our hands full. We have to hopefully get healthy and get ready to go at home. We’ll need our crowd here. We’ll need them to give us a little extra energy. The stretch that we have is a difficult stretch without a break. We can’t control that. We can control being ready to play Saturday. That’s our job. We’ll have them ready,” he said.
Auburn coach Gus Malzahn didn’t celebrate being listed at No. 3 in the first playoff rankings. He had other things on his mind.
“We’ve got Ole Miss. That’s the only thing on our mind. We’re playing one of the better teams in the country,” he said.
“We’ve got to go on the road and play three Top 10 teams,” Malzahn said. “We’ll worry about [the rankings] as it gets toward the end of the season.”
This Saturday the Tigers will put their prolific offense against the Rebels’ defense that will be weakened by the season-ending injury to linebacker Denzel Nkemdiche. Stopping Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall will be the Rebels’ top priority. How does Freeze plan to do that?
“Tackling, having your assignments down and being in the right spot are important,” Freezes said. “Last year, we were in the right spots sometimes and didn’t get it done. He’s that talented. We’re going to have to tackle extremely well.”
Freeze went to school on the way South Carolina attacked Auburn.
“They went for it on fourth down quite a few times. They threw it. They didn’t have any success running, but they did throw for quite a few yards,” he said. ”They just went in with that as their philosophy and that’s what they decided they were going to do. They were going to try to win a shootout with them and go for it on fourth down under five yards in a lot of areas of the field. They had success doing that. Give Coach (Steve) Spurrier credit. He felt like he could roll the dice early in the game and often and he did and it paid off for him. They did throw and catch it well.”
If Ole Miss is going to follow the same script, quarterback Bo Wallace is going to have to have a big game and that was a problem against LSU.
“I would say this for our entire team, not just Bo, our demeanor was a bit different in that environment,” said Freeze. “We let things get to us that have not bothered us earlier in the season. It seemed to rattle us a little bit. He missed some open guys. He also made some really good throws. It just seemed that our demeanor was a little bit different as a team. I haven’t noticed any mechanical things that are any different.”
This will be two one-loss teams going at it for all the playoff marbles and should be a dandy game.
The SEC Crystal Ball picks Auburn.
As for the rest of the conference games, the SEC Crystal Ball picks Texas A&M to beat ULM; Vanderbilt to get a win over Old Dominion; Georgia to beat Florida; Missouri will get a tough win over Kentucky;
Mississippi State will hold onto its No. 1 ranking by beating Arkansas and South Carolina will get a win over Tennessee.
