random thoughts

[JustBlues]

We won. We are undefeated. At this point, too much is being made of the fact that we had some trouble separating ourselves from Vanderbilt. Every championship team struggles in at least one game against a team which should be lesser competition. Ohio State last year lost to a mediocre VT team and then had to win in overtime against a mediocre Penn State. What is important is how you respond the next week after a struggle. That we gained an SEC win on a week when we were off rhythm could prove to be important at the end of the season.

Vanderbilt is not last year’s Vanderbilt. They are sneaky good. They have gotten better every week. They started off with a close loss to a Western Kentucky team that is better than people think. Since then, they have had two losses to top ten teams. 1-3 doesn’t sound good, but if they continue to improve don’t be surprised to see them win some games. Their defense is an SEC caliber defense. Their young offense is improving every week.

Chad had a bad game for him. It happens to every player and the week after Alabama is certainly a time that anyone could be feeling mental fatigue. There are other factors that contributed, including the play of some team mates.

Too much is being made of the offensive line struggles at this point. We are playing a very patchwork line and at least two of those linemen were playing with painful injuries on Saturday. We are winning games with that patchwork line and it won’t take much for us to have a very good line. Winning the freedom of Tunsil from his current hostage situation would be quite the healing balm. Cooper is playing out of position and overall he has done surprisingly well this year. Saturday he was off a little and Vanderbilt had the tools and coaching to take advantage of it. Some of his struggles had to do with what I will call “The Sowell Effect”. Contrary to what some believe, Sowell was not a bad lineman. There is a reason why he is still making his living in the NFL. Bad players don’t make NFL rosters. One problem he had is that, like Cooper, he was forced into duty as a left tackle when his skill set was more suited to right tackle. As a lineman, particularly a left tackle, there is a very small window of time in which to leave your stance and put yourself in a position to block. If you move too soon, then you get a procedure penalty. If you move too late, you get beaten. For a variety of reasons, the principle being coaching, Sowell never found that window while at Ole Miss. He would move too soon and get procedure penalties and then overreact to the penalty by staying in his stance too long and thus allow the defensive lineman to blow past him. Cooper had the same problem Saturday. Once he got that first procedure call, he overreacted and held his stance too long. Vanderbilt saw that he wasn’t coming out of his stance quick enough and took advantage of it. Then he overreacted to getting beaten and got another procedure call. It becomes a vicious cycle that is hard to defeat, but is definitely correctable. Add his struggles to a beat up offensive line facing a stout defense, and the entire offense is going to be lethargic. Whenever I see repeated procedure penalties like we saw Saturday, I do begin to wonder if the defense isn’t calling out and confusing the linemen.

We are about to face another very stout defense. Facing three good defenses in a row as we are is very tough on an offense. We cannot play like we did Saturday.

Stringfellow became what we hoped he would be. Saturday he became a reliable alternative to Treadwell when the other team took Treadwell away. He took a big step forward Saturday. The fact that Treadwell’s numbers became good by the end of the night can be attributed to the fact that Stringfellow and Pack showed Vanderbilt that they had to pay attention to all of our receivers.

Kudos to the staff and team for coming up with the proper response when we found ourselves behind on the scoreboard for the first time this year. We only trailed for 1:03 and once we took the lead, we kept it.

Kudos to the staff and team for taking offensive control of the game in the latter part of the fourth quarter and making sure that a comeback was not possible for a very feisty Vandy team.

We miss Tony Connor. Vandy could not do anything offensively all night except for that underneath passing that killed us on third downs and kept their drives alive, no doubt contributing to acid reflux and heart issues for scores of Ole Miss fans. We had the skill, but not the experience and vocal leadership, to take care of those types of coverages. Hopefully, with Coach Connors help, the young players will be able to learn what is needed. The 4-2-5 doesn’t have the linebacker resources to allow the defensive backs to forget the underneath coverages. Those hybrid positions are important and even more important is the fact that Connor did the play calling for coverages.

[rebeljim]

Our oline play is very disturbing, just isn't getting the job done. Not near enough SEC talent at that position. We still need to get better stopping the north/south running on defense. Our LB play isn't very good right now, and we need to get more pressure on the QB. Also, quit running the jumbo package, Liggins isn't getting the job done. But, we're undefeated, and I expect a much better performance against Fla.

[MageeRebel425]

We won. We are undefeated. At this point, too much is being made of the fact that we had some trouble separating ourselves from Vanderbilt. Every championship team struggles in at least one game against a team which should be lesser competition. Ohio State last year lost to a mediocre VT team and then had to win in overtime against a mediocre Penn State. What is important is how you respond the next week after a struggle. That we gained an SEC win on a week when we were off rhythm could prove to be important at the end of the season.

Vanderbilt is not last year’s Vanderbilt. They are sneaky good. They have gotten better every week. They started off with a close loss to a Western Kentucky team that is better than people think. Since then, they have had two losses to top ten teams. 1-3 doesn’t sound good, but if they continue to improve don’t be surprised to see them win some games. Their defense is an SEC caliber defense. Their young offense is improving every week.

Chad had a bad game for him. It happens to every player and the week after Alabama is certainly a time that anyone could be feeling mental fatigue. There are other factors that contributed, including the play of some team mates.

Too much is being made of the offensive line struggles at this point. We are playing a very patchwork line and at least two of those linemen were playing with painful injuries on Saturday. We are winning games with that patchwork line and it won’t take much for us to have a very good line. Winning the freedom of Tunsil from his current hostage situation would be quite the healing balm. Cooper is playing out of position and overall he has done surprisingly well this year. Saturday he was off a little and Vanderbilt had the tools and coaching to take advantage of it. Some of his struggles had to do with what I will call “The Sowell Effect”. Contrary to what some believe, Sowell was not a bad lineman. There is a reason why he is still making his living in the NFL. Bad players don’t make NFL rosters. One problem he had is that, like Cooper, he was forced into duty as a left tackle when his skill set was more suited to right tackle. As a lineman, particularly a left tackle, there is a very small window of time in which to leave your stance and put yourself in a position to block. If you move too soon, then you get a procedure penalty. If you move too late, you get beaten. For a variety of reasons, the principle being coaching, Sowell never found that window while at Ole Miss. He would move too soon and get procedure penalties and then overreact to the penalty by staying in his stance too long and thus allow the defensive lineman to blow past him. Cooper had the same problem Saturday. Once he got that first procedure call, he overreacted and held his stance too long. Vanderbilt saw that he wasn’t coming out of his stance quick enough and took advantage of it. Then he overreacted to getting beaten and got another procedure call. It becomes a vicious cycle that is hard to defeat, but is definitely correctable. Add his struggles to a beat up offensive line facing a stout defense, and the entire offense is going to be lethargic. Whenever I see repeated procedure penalties like we saw Saturday, I do begin to wonder if the defense isn’t calling out and confusing the linemen.

We are about to face another very stout defense. Facing three good defenses in a row as we are is very tough on an offense. We cannot play like we did Saturday.

Stringfellow became what we hoped he would be. Saturday he became a reliable alternative to Treadwell when the other team took Treadwell away. He took a big step forward Saturday. The fact that Treadwell’s numbers became good by the end of the night can be attributed to the fact that Stringfellow and Pack showed Vanderbilt that they had to pay attention to all of our receivers.

Kudos to the staff and team for coming up with the proper response when we found ourselves behind on the scoreboard for the first time this year. We only trailed for 1:03 and once we took the lead, we kept it.

Kudos to the staff and team for taking offensive control of the game in the latter part of the fourth quarter and making sure that a comeback was not possible for a very feisty Vandy team.

We miss Tony Connor. Vandy could not do anything offensively all night except for that underneath passing that killed us on third downs and kept their drives alive, no doubt contributing to acid reflux and heart issues for scores of Ole Miss fans. We had the skill, but not the experience and vocal leadership, to take care of those types of coverages. Hopefully, with Coach Connors help, the young players will be able to learn what is needed. The 4-2-5 doesn’t have the linebacker resources to allow the defensive backs to forget the underneath coverages. Those hybrid positions are important and even more important is the fact that Connor did the play calling for coverages.

I agree that some of the O line problems are based off of the shuffling, but I don't think anybody is overreacting on the OL troubles. The biggest issue our teams have had since the current staff has been in place is OL... If we could get Tunsil back, it would help tremendously.. Because of scheme, I do believe Tony Conner is the MVP on D.. I do not like the match up with Florida.. They are salty along the D line.. They also have a very good secondary... With the injuries and hostage crisis, our D will need to go be the D that we saw several times last year to win this game.. I am honestly more concerned about this game than the LSU game... Florida will be sky high....