Ole Miss, after seeming to have the game in hand, withstood a 2nd half surge from a tough Arkansas team desperate for a win, rebounded from a 20-17 4th quarter deficit, and claimed a hard-fought 27-20 win Saturday night in VHS. It wasn't pretty, but it counts the same in the standings. For most of my life, this was a game that Ole Miss would have found a way to lose, but since CLK has been at the helm, Ole Miss has found a way to win games like this on multiple occasions. This is not a coincidence. I will speak about this at the end of this post. I will follow the normal pattern, discussing the impact of specific players in the different position groups. I will then comment on the crowd (I was there on the east side again, about the 30-yard line, surrounded by Razorback fans who had bought their tickets on after-market sites...), coaching, and officiating.
QB
Dart was resilient. He did not look anywhere near as sharp as last week, from the 1st play. It has been said that he was hurt early. It certainly looked like he was off. Nevertheless, he finished the game 16-25 for 153 yards and had the shovel pass TD to Wade. He was victimized by a couple of drops and consistent pressure from Arkansas's D. He had 49 yards rushing, but was sacked twice which cost him 16 rushing yards for a net of 33 yards. Despite not being at his best, he did not turn the ball over. The bottom line, Dart played well enough for us to win.
RB
Judkins had 65 yards on 18 carries and a TD. He consistently seems to get tripped from behind just as he is about to break in the clear. It appears to me that he is not as explosive as he was last year. It may just be me. Bentley has emerged to give us a great 2nd option, much like Judkins did last year. He had 94 yards and a TD on 13 carries. He seems to have another gear that Judkins is lacking to this point. Hopefully, both will continue to improve as the 2nd half of the season unfolds.
TE
Prieskorn did not have a catch and did not block as well this week as last. His breaks seemed to be a little lazy as he was moving up the field on routes and he reached a lot on his blocks instead of moving his feet and using good technique. I saw Heath in there on a couple of plays, mostly in 2 TE sets. Chase hasn't posted snap counts yet, but I would suspect that Prieskorn was on the field at TE for most of our 72 plays. This fact, despite him not playing particularly well, is telling. Question: as the season wears on and the weather cools, might we see JJ at TE more?
WR
Harris only had 1 catch (that was not called back by a penalty) and left the game late. Not sure what the prognosis is or how long his recovery time will be, but I don't have to state his value to our offensive scheme. That said, He did not get open on many plays Saturday night as Arkansas consistently had him covered. Jordan Watkins is just steady. Nothing spectacular, just consistent. He had 7 catches for 86 yards. Wade only had the one catch on the shovel pass for a TD. He had a big drop that would have kept a drive alive. Williams coming into the game when Harris went out tells us that Franklin just isn't healthy. I saw Franklin head to the locker room when Williams went in for Harris. What does that mean? Nothing? Something? Not sure who the next guy up is, if there even is one. We need someone not contributing currently to step up.
OL
Noticed Williams in the game more at LT than in previous games. Not sure how many snaps he got, but it was enough for me to notice. Pettus, who I have criticized here, played better this game. He was victimized by a bunk holding call on the long back shoulder throw to Harris. McGee has emerged as our best pulling guard. We gave up 2 sacks and faced consistent pressure from Arkansas all night. We finished with 196 yards rushing, but that is a skewed stat considering we had at least 3 plays of 30 yards or more. Bottom line, we got beat on too many 1v1s and had too many missed blocks. This resulted in too many negative plays on offense which put us behind the sticks too often. This led to a deplorable 3rd down conversion rate.
DL
Where has Josh Harris been all year? This guy had played a grand total ( according to previous game snap counts) of 37 plays all season, with 23 of those being against Mercer. He made a big impact on the game Saturday. He was a big body to move. He was disciplined in his pass-rush lane. He won a significant number of 1v1s on the LOS. He only had 1 tackle, but he was a force to be dealt with on the LOS. I hope he continues to do whatever it was that got him on the field Saturday night. JJ continued to be a steady player for us. Jared Ivey played a really good game. He had 8 tackles, a sack, and 2 TFLs. Akelo Stone was solid, as was Isaac Ukwu. Both had a sack and Ukwu was consistently "in the picture" around the ball.
LB
Ashanti Sistrunk has consistently earned my praise in this post for 2 years. He plays about as well as he is capable, consistently. His lack of speed was evidenced on the INT return, but he was in the right place to make the play. He had 9 tackles, a sack, and INT, and a TFL. Suntarine Perkins is going to be so good. He is starting to figure things out. He had a sack, at least 1 QB hurry, and was all over the field.
DB
Trey Washington led the team in tackles again. Dude is all over the place. John Saunders Jr. played his best game in a Rebel uniform, recording 6 tackles, an INT, a TFL, and a PD. Prince had 2 TFLs. Daijahn Anthony plays so tough. I would love to have him on my team. Isheem Young had a couple of tackles and a PD. I thought we allowed Washington and Armstrong to roam free too much. Arkansas converted too many 3rd downs. There just isn't a nice way to say that. They converted 3rd and 20, 2nd and 20, 3rd and 13. Just to name a few. That is not going to be something that we can do going forward and expect to win.
Crowd
65,780 was the announced attendance. I thought the crowd was a lot like the team, a little hungover from last week. I sat in section M, completely surrounded by Arkansas fans. They were all pretty friendly. I just don't understand selling your tickets to other teams' fans. We have a ticket exchange on this site. I guess as long as you get yours. Whatever.
Coaching
I really liked the defensive game plan this week. We got after Arkansas, bringing pressure, pursued to the ball well, closing down running lanes and forcing long across-the-field throws. We had at least half a dozen sacks and several TFLs. The good, Arkansas only had 36 rushing yards. The bad, as I have already said, we gave up too many 3rd down conversions. Arkansas was 7-16 on 3rd down, including the last couple of series when we finally slowed them down on 3rd down. Offensively, we didn't take any shots down the field. We need to take a shot every once in a while, just to keep the opposition honest if nothing else. We lost too many 1v1s on the OL and got caught holding too many times.
Whatever this staff is doing in the area of culture building, it is working! We are a resilient bunch. We play hard. We rise against adversity. We overcome bad breaks. We have guts! This is at least partially attributed to coaching. Kudos to the staff for whatever it is in this crucial area of team development.
Officiating
The crew we had Saturday night (Ken Williamson is the white hat) makes me cringe when I see them on the field, ala crews white hatted by Steve Shaw, Penn Wagers, Tom Ritter, and Matt Austin before them. This is the 1st time I recall winning a game with this crew. (That would be an interesting research topic, who officiates our wins and losses) Here are some examples of what I saw from Section M:
A. Arkansas has 3rd and 12 on their 1st drive. KJ throws an incompletion on the Arkansas sideline. Arkansas sideline starts screaming for a flag. After what seems like an eternity, the Field Judge throws a very late flag for PI. Instead of a 3 and out for our defense, Arkansas goes 15 plays for a TD, using nearly 8 minutes of the clock. (We got somewhat of a "makeup" call on the next drive, as defensive holding was called on Arkansas on 3rd and 9. Their guy did in fact grab our guy's jersey, but I have seen Alabama get away with WAY more. Flag thrown by the back judge.)
B. 2nd Quarter. We have a 2nd and 10 from our own 20. Arkansas has MULTIPLE players jump into the neutral zone on the hard count, and Prieskorn, like he was probably coached to do, takes off to force the defensive offsides call. The officials, after huddling, inexplicably call procedure on Prieskorn. Instead of 3rd and 5, we have 3rd and 15. We have to punt.
C. A couple of drives later, we have a 1st and 10 on our own 32. Dart hits Harris for 41 yards. (As a coach, I learned to always scan the field after a big play for flags) AFTER the catch is made, The white hat (Williamson) throws his flag and calls holding on Pettus. I saw the sequence with my own eyes. I have been a critic of Pettus, but, IMHO, he was not holding on the play.
D. Dart hands the ball off on a running play, (can't remember which RB, not looking for it on the tape at this hour) and the Arkansas DE grabs Dart's facemask right in front of the white hat. No call is made. How can 65,000 people see that, but he didn't? Ok, that is enough examples of this topic. The bottom line, the officiating did not do us any favors Saturday night. The upside, we did win a game with Williamson's crew officiating it.
A much-needed open week is next. We need to get some people well. We need to reset, refit, and refocus. This is a pretty good team, but not a great football team as of now. We have issues at several different positions. We have little team depth. We could just as easily be 3-3, 0-3 right now instead of 5-1, 2-1. We are what we are because this team has moxy. They show up to the showdown and accept the challenge that is presented. Dart is unquestionably the leader of the team. Possibly the biggest game of the CLK era looms in 2 weeks on the Plains. A win there opens up all kinds of possibilities. I will be there, I will be loud, I will be 100% behind this team. LFG! That is all.
QB
Dart was resilient. He did not look anywhere near as sharp as last week, from the 1st play. It has been said that he was hurt early. It certainly looked like he was off. Nevertheless, he finished the game 16-25 for 153 yards and had the shovel pass TD to Wade. He was victimized by a couple of drops and consistent pressure from Arkansas's D. He had 49 yards rushing, but was sacked twice which cost him 16 rushing yards for a net of 33 yards. Despite not being at his best, he did not turn the ball over. The bottom line, Dart played well enough for us to win.
RB
Judkins had 65 yards on 18 carries and a TD. He consistently seems to get tripped from behind just as he is about to break in the clear. It appears to me that he is not as explosive as he was last year. It may just be me. Bentley has emerged to give us a great 2nd option, much like Judkins did last year. He had 94 yards and a TD on 13 carries. He seems to have another gear that Judkins is lacking to this point. Hopefully, both will continue to improve as the 2nd half of the season unfolds.
TE
Prieskorn did not have a catch and did not block as well this week as last. His breaks seemed to be a little lazy as he was moving up the field on routes and he reached a lot on his blocks instead of moving his feet and using good technique. I saw Heath in there on a couple of plays, mostly in 2 TE sets. Chase hasn't posted snap counts yet, but I would suspect that Prieskorn was on the field at TE for most of our 72 plays. This fact, despite him not playing particularly well, is telling. Question: as the season wears on and the weather cools, might we see JJ at TE more?
WR
Harris only had 1 catch (that was not called back by a penalty) and left the game late. Not sure what the prognosis is or how long his recovery time will be, but I don't have to state his value to our offensive scheme. That said, He did not get open on many plays Saturday night as Arkansas consistently had him covered. Jordan Watkins is just steady. Nothing spectacular, just consistent. He had 7 catches for 86 yards. Wade only had the one catch on the shovel pass for a TD. He had a big drop that would have kept a drive alive. Williams coming into the game when Harris went out tells us that Franklin just isn't healthy. I saw Franklin head to the locker room when Williams went in for Harris. What does that mean? Nothing? Something? Not sure who the next guy up is, if there even is one. We need someone not contributing currently to step up.
OL
Noticed Williams in the game more at LT than in previous games. Not sure how many snaps he got, but it was enough for me to notice. Pettus, who I have criticized here, played better this game. He was victimized by a bunk holding call on the long back shoulder throw to Harris. McGee has emerged as our best pulling guard. We gave up 2 sacks and faced consistent pressure from Arkansas all night. We finished with 196 yards rushing, but that is a skewed stat considering we had at least 3 plays of 30 yards or more. Bottom line, we got beat on too many 1v1s and had too many missed blocks. This resulted in too many negative plays on offense which put us behind the sticks too often. This led to a deplorable 3rd down conversion rate.
DL
Where has Josh Harris been all year? This guy had played a grand total ( according to previous game snap counts) of 37 plays all season, with 23 of those being against Mercer. He made a big impact on the game Saturday. He was a big body to move. He was disciplined in his pass-rush lane. He won a significant number of 1v1s on the LOS. He only had 1 tackle, but he was a force to be dealt with on the LOS. I hope he continues to do whatever it was that got him on the field Saturday night. JJ continued to be a steady player for us. Jared Ivey played a really good game. He had 8 tackles, a sack, and 2 TFLs. Akelo Stone was solid, as was Isaac Ukwu. Both had a sack and Ukwu was consistently "in the picture" around the ball.
LB
Ashanti Sistrunk has consistently earned my praise in this post for 2 years. He plays about as well as he is capable, consistently. His lack of speed was evidenced on the INT return, but he was in the right place to make the play. He had 9 tackles, a sack, and INT, and a TFL. Suntarine Perkins is going to be so good. He is starting to figure things out. He had a sack, at least 1 QB hurry, and was all over the field.
DB
Trey Washington led the team in tackles again. Dude is all over the place. John Saunders Jr. played his best game in a Rebel uniform, recording 6 tackles, an INT, a TFL, and a PD. Prince had 2 TFLs. Daijahn Anthony plays so tough. I would love to have him on my team. Isheem Young had a couple of tackles and a PD. I thought we allowed Washington and Armstrong to roam free too much. Arkansas converted too many 3rd downs. There just isn't a nice way to say that. They converted 3rd and 20, 2nd and 20, 3rd and 13. Just to name a few. That is not going to be something that we can do going forward and expect to win.
Crowd
65,780 was the announced attendance. I thought the crowd was a lot like the team, a little hungover from last week. I sat in section M, completely surrounded by Arkansas fans. They were all pretty friendly. I just don't understand selling your tickets to other teams' fans. We have a ticket exchange on this site. I guess as long as you get yours. Whatever.
Coaching
I really liked the defensive game plan this week. We got after Arkansas, bringing pressure, pursued to the ball well, closing down running lanes and forcing long across-the-field throws. We had at least half a dozen sacks and several TFLs. The good, Arkansas only had 36 rushing yards. The bad, as I have already said, we gave up too many 3rd down conversions. Arkansas was 7-16 on 3rd down, including the last couple of series when we finally slowed them down on 3rd down. Offensively, we didn't take any shots down the field. We need to take a shot every once in a while, just to keep the opposition honest if nothing else. We lost too many 1v1s on the OL and got caught holding too many times.
Whatever this staff is doing in the area of culture building, it is working! We are a resilient bunch. We play hard. We rise against adversity. We overcome bad breaks. We have guts! This is at least partially attributed to coaching. Kudos to the staff for whatever it is in this crucial area of team development.
Officiating
The crew we had Saturday night (Ken Williamson is the white hat) makes me cringe when I see them on the field, ala crews white hatted by Steve Shaw, Penn Wagers, Tom Ritter, and Matt Austin before them. This is the 1st time I recall winning a game with this crew. (That would be an interesting research topic, who officiates our wins and losses) Here are some examples of what I saw from Section M:
A. Arkansas has 3rd and 12 on their 1st drive. KJ throws an incompletion on the Arkansas sideline. Arkansas sideline starts screaming for a flag. After what seems like an eternity, the Field Judge throws a very late flag for PI. Instead of a 3 and out for our defense, Arkansas goes 15 plays for a TD, using nearly 8 minutes of the clock. (We got somewhat of a "makeup" call on the next drive, as defensive holding was called on Arkansas on 3rd and 9. Their guy did in fact grab our guy's jersey, but I have seen Alabama get away with WAY more. Flag thrown by the back judge.)
B. 2nd Quarter. We have a 2nd and 10 from our own 20. Arkansas has MULTIPLE players jump into the neutral zone on the hard count, and Prieskorn, like he was probably coached to do, takes off to force the defensive offsides call. The officials, after huddling, inexplicably call procedure on Prieskorn. Instead of 3rd and 5, we have 3rd and 15. We have to punt.
C. A couple of drives later, we have a 1st and 10 on our own 32. Dart hits Harris for 41 yards. (As a coach, I learned to always scan the field after a big play for flags) AFTER the catch is made, The white hat (Williamson) throws his flag and calls holding on Pettus. I saw the sequence with my own eyes. I have been a critic of Pettus, but, IMHO, he was not holding on the play.
D. Dart hands the ball off on a running play, (can't remember which RB, not looking for it on the tape at this hour) and the Arkansas DE grabs Dart's facemask right in front of the white hat. No call is made. How can 65,000 people see that, but he didn't? Ok, that is enough examples of this topic. The bottom line, the officiating did not do us any favors Saturday night. The upside, we did win a game with Williamson's crew officiating it.
A much-needed open week is next. We need to get some people well. We need to reset, refit, and refocus. This is a pretty good team, but not a great football team as of now. We have issues at several different positions. We have little team depth. We could just as easily be 3-3, 0-3 right now instead of 5-1, 2-1. We are what we are because this team has moxy. They show up to the showdown and accept the challenge that is presented. Dart is unquestionably the leader of the team. Possibly the biggest game of the CLK era looms in 2 weeks on the Plains. A win there opens up all kinds of possibilities. I will be there, I will be loud, I will be 100% behind this team. LFG! That is all.
