Texas A&M Football: Ole Miss Preview

The Ole Miss Rebels roll into town this Saturday for a big matchup with the Texas A&M football team.  Holding a 7-1 record, the Rebels have dominated most of their schedule thus far in the year, but slipped up last week against LSU, falling 45-20 in Death Valley.

In all fairness, however, strength of schedule has been a concern up until this point for Ole Miss.  Their opponents so far have been Troy, Central Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Tulsa, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Auburn, and LSU, with the Bayou Bengals, as I said, handing them their only loss.  Even at other times, the Rebels have looked a bit shaky: they only beat Tulsa by 8 points, fell behind Vanderbilt 13-3, and even the Auburn game was much closer than Rebel fans would have cared for.

Ole Miss has a reputation for a high-flying, uptempo offense, garnered mostly by the pedigree of their head coach, Lane Kiffin.  This is less so the case this year, however, as they have had much more of a focus on putting the ball in the hands of their two stud running backs, freshman Quinshon Judkins and TCU transfer Zach Evans (who I’m sure many Texas A&M football fans are familiar with).  The two have run for 831 yards at 5.7 per carry and 605 yards at 6.1 per carry, respectively.  Formidable numbers, to say the least.

Transfer QB Jaxson Dart has played a big role in the run game as well, adding 378 yards at 6.0 per carry on the ground himself.  The Aggie defense will have to play soundly and tackle well in space against this offense that is so predicated on getting playmakers in 1-on-1 matchups in order to have a shot to win.  The run defense for this Texas A&M football team has been much-maligned compared to previous seasons, but has improved in the last few games, holding Alabama (who had an even heavier dose of run than usual with Jalen Milroe at QB) to only 93% of their average YPC (all calculations per my own data), and South Carolina to only 81% of their average YPC.  Ole Miss is a different beast altogether compared to those two teams, but we’ll see if that trend can continue on Saturday.  Evans, at latest word, was questionable after sitting out the LSU game with an injury— if he’s unable to go, the Aggies will definitely benefit.

In the passing game, the Rebels’ toughest weapon to stop is Jonathan Mingo, who comes into the game with 575 yards and 22.1 yards per reception.  Behind him is Mississippi State transfer (yes, you read that right) Malik Heath, with 491 yards on 15.8 per reception.  Both of these guys pose matchup problems, especially when Kiffin lulls a defense to sleep with a heavy dose of run before going over the top to one of these two.  The Aggie corners will have to play a disciplined game, as they’ll be facing a lot of 1-on-1 matchups: a definite theme with this offense.  The A&M passing defense, of course, has been the star of the whole defensive unit so far, holding opponents, on average, to only 82% of their yards per attempt average, a stellar number.  I foresee Antonio Johnson and Bryce Anderson playing huge roles in both pass defense and run support for this Texas A&M football team — versatile weapons such as them are invaluable when it comes to matchups like these.

On the other side of the ball, the Rebel defense has been lackluster of late.  After some pretty impressive performances against the first five teams on their schedule, each of their last 3 opponents have exceeded their average in YPA, and the last two (Auburn and LSU) have exceeded their average in YPC as well.  A shaky Auburn offense, to put it kindly, put up 34 points on the Rebels at home two weeks ago, and LSU, as I mentioned, scored 45 against them.  4 out of their last 5 opponents have exceeded their success rate average against the Rebels as well, meaning they have a tough time knocking opponents off-schedule.

The Rebels’ best defensive player, senior DB A.J. Finley, exited against LSU with an injury and did not return.  Just as with Evans, if Finley is unable to go, it will definitely benefit the Ags.  For a team that has struggled with pass protection, however, the Aggies will need to pay special attention to sack leaders Khari Coleman and Jared Ivey, who have 3.5 and 4.5 on the year, respectively.

Obviously the A&M offense has not had the most success (if you’ll forgive the understatement), but they’ll have their chances against this Ole Miss unit.  Playing in front of a jazzed-up crowd at Kyle for the first time in 42 days can’t hurt, either.  I expect the Rebels to key in on Devon Achane, who is by far the Aggies’ most proven player, so this Texas A&M football squad will definitely need another player to step up, whether that’s Evan Stewart, Moose Muhammad, or even someone like Leveon Moss, who needs more run in this offense.

The game will start at 6:30 PM CT on Saturday on the SEC Network.