Whatever Ole Miss did during its bye week, the results are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
The Rebels, who entered Saturday’s matchup with the worst rushing defense in the SEC, held Missouri’s powerful running game to just 39 yards on 26 carries in what might have been their best defensive performance of the season in a 31-3 win at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
This is the same Missouri offense that featured a running back who totaled more than 200 rushing yards in each of his previous two games. On Saturday in Oxford, Jamal Roberts was held to just 20 yards and a paltry 2.0 yards per carry.
All game long, the Rebels’ defensive line was disruptive, penetrating into the backfield and forcing Missouri’s running backs to evade defenders before they could even reach the line of scrimmage.
Ole Miss recorded five tackles for loss, which only partially illustrates how disruptive the defense was throughout the afternoon.
Considering how Ole Miss was gashed for more than 300 rushing yards against Florida before its bye week, Saturday provided another indication that the Rebels have made serious, tangible improvements.
The performance against Vanderbilt suggested the problems exposed in Gainesville were being corrected. Saturday’s performance against one of the SEC’s most productive rushing attacks provided even more convincing evidence.
Defensive tackle Will Echoles, in particular, delivered the kind of performance that helps explain why he’s considered a potential first-round pick in next April’s NFL Draft.
Echoles finished with five tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss and two crucial pass breakups. His impact, however, went beyond what appeared in the box score.
It certainly helped that former Ole Miss quarterback Austin Simmons was off target for much of the afternoon. He threw his second interception of the season late in the fourth quarter, but completed just 57% of his passes and was sacked twice.
Of course, the Ole Miss defense deserves plenty of credit for Simmons’ struggles.
He rarely had a clean pocket to work from and several times had a free pass rusher bearing down on him. The pressure clearly had an effect, with passes sailing over receivers’ heads and landing just out of reach, including on at least one potential touchdown.
And with the Rebels limiting Missouri’s rushing attack, the Tigers needed Simmons to make plays through the air rather than relying on Roberts to consistently move the chains.
Missouri needed Simmons, Roberts and the rest of its offense to do considerably more, especially considering what the Ole Miss offense was doing.
Which was pretty much whatever it wanted.
Kewan Lacy, despite missing the entire second quarter, gained 122 yards on the ground while Makhi Frazier added 101. Both running backs averaged more than 6.5 yards per carry, providing the kind of production that makes the Rebels’ already dangerous offense even more difficult to defend.
Trinidad Chambliss was his usual, supremely accurate self, completing 20 of 36 passes for 241 yards. He threw three perfectly placed touchdown passes and added another touchdown on the ground early in the fourth quarter.
Ole Miss produced its most productive first half of the season with 300 total yards before finishing with 498 yards of offense and averaging 6.7 yards per play.
And that’s what makes the defensive performance so encouraging.
Ole Miss has an offense capable of putting tremendous pressure on opposing defenses. For much of the season, however, the Rebels’ defense struggled to consistently hold up its end of the bargain.
That hasn’t been the case over the last two games.
Against Vanderbilt, Ole Miss showed the first significant signs that the work done during the bye week was paying off. Against Missouri, the Rebels backed up that performance against an offense that appeared particularly well-equipped to exploit their biggest defensive weakness.
That’s no small accomplishment.
There’s still plenty for Pete Golding and his staff to correct. The third quarter provided more than enough teaching material, with neither offense accomplishing much of anything. And nobody should mistake two impressive performances for a finished product.
But for the second consecutive game, Ole Miss played dominant football for most of the afternoon, and its defense was a major reason why.
The group that was embarrassed by Florida’s rushing attack just a few weeks ago now looks considerably different.
Two games don’t erase everything that happened in Gainesville. But they provide increasingly convincing evidence that the Rebels did more than simply talk about fixing their problems during the bye week.
They might actually have fixed some of them.
