Sixty-two is an important number for Ole Miss.
It’s the number of missed tackles the Rebels have made this season. Sixty-two times an Ole Miss defender has missed a tackle and it’s led to the opposing offense gaining 482 yards.
“Which is 70% of the rushing yards we’ve given up for the year,” Ole Miss coach Pete Golding said Monday.
That’s why the bye week wasn’t a vacation. It wasn’t even a normal bye week. Ole Miss went straight at its biggest defensive problem with full pads, full contact and full honesty.
“We didn’t hide (the missed tackles),” Golding said. “That was in the team meeting Sunday night.”
Normally, teams don’t go live during a bye. Ole Miss did.
Golding said the Rebels needed to feel the physicality again, needed to train the way they’re expected to play, and needed to rebuild confidence in the most basic part of defense: getting the ball carrier on the ground.
“Normally coming off a bye, you’re not in full pads and you’re not live,” Golding said. “We were in full pads and live because, to me, you’re going to fight like you train, so you have to train like you fight.”
That physical work was paired with something even more detailed: correcting the fundamentals that lead to missed tackles in the first place. Golding didn’t sugarcoat how much needed fixing.
“A lot,” he said. “Leverage, obviously, was No. 1. When you talk about defense, it’s numbers-based. It’s leverage, angles, eye control, balance and body control. But the base thing is striking a block, leveraging the ball and understanding where my help is.”
He walked players through examples with the same call, same player, same situation where one correct technique produced a tackle for loss and one incorrect step turned into a 15-yard gain.
The point wasn’t that Ole Miss can’t tackle.
It’s that the Rebels have already shown they can. They just haven’t done it consistently.
“All these guys have shown the ability to do it,” Golding said. “Now we’re talking about games later, series later, the next play, the next drive, and suddenly we’re not. Why?”
That question matters more now than ever. Ole Miss is about to face Missouri, which just ran over Florida. Then come the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country. If the Rebels don’t tackle well, they won’t survive those Saturdays.
But Golding also made sure to remind everyone that the defense hasn’t been a complete disaster.
There have been stretches of full quarters or full halves where Ole Miss has looked like a disciplined, physical unit.
“I think there are six or seven quarters throughout the year where we haven’t given up any points, or at least no touchdowns,” Golding said. “There are multiple halves where we’ve strung communication together. We’ve put violence on tape.”
That’s the challenge now. Not reinventing the defense. Not panicking. Just doing the good things more often.
“There are enough guys who have flashed the ability to play winning football in some role.”
Ole Miss doesn’t need perfection. It needs fewer missed tackles, better leverage and more of the defensive football it has already shown it can play.
