‘We want to play defense hard’: Ole Miss is currently defense-first. The Rebels are just fine with it.
The Ole Miss defense through three games in 2022 has given up a grand total of 13 points.
Unsurprisingly, the Rebels — who this week were ranked No. 16 in all of college football in the Associated Press Top 25 — are 3-0 as a result.
To be fair, though, they’ve yet to face an offense the caliber of Tulsa this season. The Golden Hurricane features the No. 1 passing attack in the country. Kickoff between the teams is set for Saturday at 3 p.m. CT inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“We got a big challenge ahead of us coming back home,” Lane Kiffin said Wednesday, on the weekly SEC Teleconference call. “We’re hoping for the home crowd to show up. We need home-field advantage, especially with the No. 1 passing offense in the country coming in.
“That would be really great if that happened, and we’ve got to play really well. This is a team that over the years has upset some big teams and taken really good teams to the wire. Very well-coached and very complicated schemes.”
Ole Miss so far has taken each and every challenge head-on.
Actually, after a 42-0 Rebel blowout of Georgia Tech in Atlanta last week, Kiffin said he was most impressed by what had been yet another stellar performance by a unit in its first year under co-defensive coordinators Chris Partridge and Mo Crum. Partridge is the primary play-caller and game-planner — duties he assumed shortly after DJ Durkin left for Texas A&M over the winter.
Kiffin praised defensive tackle JJ Pegues and EDGE Tavius Robinson by name. He didn’t stop there, in atypical, and notable, remarks from the usually offensive-minded third-year Ole Miss head coach, especially considering his running game went well over 300 rushing yards and scored six touchdowns in the latest Ole Miss win.
The Rebels are No. 1 in the SEC and fifth nationally in rushing yards.
Even more, quarterback Jaxson Dart seemingly provided clarity in his months-long Ole Miss quarterback competition with Luke Altmyer. Dart, in showing noticeable on-field growth, bounced back from a sluggish start (4 for 9 for just over 90 yards, no touchdowns and an interception) in completing six of his last seven passes for 115 yards.
“A lot of the defensive ends got a ton of pressure on the quarterback,” Kiffin said. “Cedric and T-Rob for two weeks in a row have just been relentless on the edges — which is obviously game-changing when you’ve got two unique defensive ends playing the way they’re playing.”
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Ole Miss currently sits in the Top 25 in the FBS in 10 different categories.
They are: total defense, scoring defense, sacks, tackles for loss, turnovers forced, rushing defense, first downs (per game) allowed, fourth-down defense and fewest red zone trips and plays of 20 yards or more allowed.
The Rebels are No. 2 in scoring defense.
“There’s just been a lot of learning lessons for our guys about just playing hard and not deciding when to do it,” Kiffin said. “We’re in punt-safe (against Georgia Tech) and Cedric blocks a punt that 99 out of 100 times someone blocks you on so you don’t need to go hard because you’re a defensive lineman. Most people don’t (but) there he is going full-speed and blocks the punt.
“There’s (Ole Miss wide receiver Jonathan) Mingo chasing down the receiver even though the whistle’s blown on what they initially ruled a lateral. He’s chasing the guy down so we have another chance on defense if that gets overturned or goes the other way.
“There’s a lot of really cool effort stuff to learn from.”
The effort starts up front with Johnson and Robinson.
Defensively-led is a stark departure from most Kiffin-coached teams, but Ole Miss has a roster to win now, save for the ongoing development of its quarterbacks, and the formula is working.
Robinson loves that he and his running-mates are finally getting top-billing.
“We all play with a chip on our shoulder,” Robinson said. “We try not to get too high. We’re three games in, so we want to keep that up and stay consistent throughout the year. We want to play defense hard.
“That’s what we go for, for sure.”
