Arkansas is looking to play spoiler as Ole Miss visits Fayetteville on Saturday. It’s the Razorbacks’ first of two or three chances in November to potentially ruin a preseason top-10 team’s College Football Playoff hopes.
With Louisiana Tech still on the schedule, the 5-3 Razorbacks are all but assured of a bowl bid, but now they’ll have a shot to play for a better bowl and maybe some bragging rights against No. 19 Ole Miss, No. 6 Texas and No. 25 Missouri.
Ole Miss has been a tough team to figure out. The Rebels returned a ton of players from last year’s 11-win team and entered this season with considerable hype. They initially backed that up, piling up stats against hapless non-conference opponents Furman, Middle Tennessee, Wake Forest and Georgia Southern.
But then reality hit. The Rebels are just 2-2 in SEC play and their high-powered offense has yet to score even 30 points against a conference opponent. Their shocking 20-17 home loss to Kentucky was the low point, especially since the Wildcats are now 3-5 and that is their lone SEC win.
Lane Kiffin’s team has a chance to get right and still live up to the hype, but Ole Miss can’t overlook Arkansas and think too much about next week’s big showdown with Georgia in Oxford.
Familiar Faces on Ole Miss Offense
Facing Jeff Lebby’s Mississippi State offense the week before facing Kiffin’s Rebel attack is probably a good thing for the Razorbacks. Lebby was Kiffin’s offensive coordinator at Ole Miss in 2020 and 2021 and the two Magnolia State schools run almost identical schemes.
Like Lebby, Kiffin wants to spread the defense out and create explosive plays. The Rebels will run the ball against light boxes and throw deep if the safeties creep up. Kiffin will rely on his West Coast offense background to run lots of screens and flat throws that move the linebackers and slot defenders horizontally. And he’ll do it all while using plenty of tempo to try and confuse the defense and create coverage busts.
When it works, it’s pretty for Ole Miss football fans to watch:
And pretty frustrating for the other side to behold.
So big plays are what the Kiffin offense is all about, but those are precisely what have dried up in SEC play. If we define an “explosive play” as a run of 10-plus yards or a pass of 20-plus yards, Ole MIss’ explosive play rate (percentage of plays that qualify as explosive) in its four non-conference games was 21%, 19%, 24% and 20%. In its four SEC games, those rates are 13%, 16%, 13% and 12%.
Offenses that focus on explosive plays generally try to create explosives on early downs, as late downs are usually reserved for just trying to move the chains. So the lack of explosive plays has exposed Ole Miss on early downs in SEC play. More and more offensive series end up facing a third down: in four non-conference games, Ole Miss faced a total of 43 third downs, but in four SEC games, they’ve faced 58. That’s not great news for an offense that ranks just 44th in distance-adjusted third-down conversion percentage.
The Kentucky loss was particularly painful, as Ole Miss converted just 1 of 10 third-down attempts. Inability to keep drives moving meant the Rebels ran just 56 plays.
Ole Miss still ranks fourth in the FBS in explosive play rate, and if it can reestablish that part of its game, its offense remains very dangerous. But the good news is that Arkansas’ defense is built to stop big plays: the Hogs are sixth in the FBS in opponent explosive play rate. The Hogs held Tennessee and LSU to just 6% each and Oklahoma State was limited to 4%. The Hogs have been daring opponents to sustain long drives without the use of big plays: Tennessee couldn’t, but LSU could. It remains to be seen whether Ole Miss can.
The Ole Miss offense is commanded by third-year starting quarterback Jaxson Dart, who is having a fantastic season. The former USC transfer is averaging 10.9 yards per pass attempt this year – best in the SEC – and has exceeded 9 yards per attempt in every game except the LSU loss. He’s grown a lot as a passer during his time in Oxford and is capable of making some very difficult throws.
One big thing to watch this week is the status of Dart’s top receiver, Tre Harris. Harris leads the SEC in receiving yards, but he missed the Oklahoma game with an injury suffered late against LSU. Without him, the Rebels spread the ball around. Tight end Caden Prieskorn had five catches for 71 yards and a score, and three wide receivers had between 50 and 60 receiving yards.
If Harris can’t go or is limited, then slot receiver Cayden Lee becomes the primary target. He’s been very efficient, catching 31 of 39 targets for 488 yards this year. That provides a nice contrast to South Carolina transfer Juice Wells, who is the home run threat. Wells has 20 catches for 407 yards this year, averaging more than 20 yards per reception. Arkansas football fans may remember Wells from the 2022 South Carolina game, when he had 8 catches for a career-high 189 yards in the Razorbacks’ win over the Gamecocks.
The Arkansas defense would love to get some pressure. Dart was pressured a season-high 21 times and sacked six times by LSU’s ferocious pass rush, and that played a decisive role in the Rebel loss in Baton Rouge. However, blitzing him isn’t advised: against the blitz this year, Dart is 55 of 79 for 1,123 yards (14.1 yards per attempt) with six touchdowns and only one interception, per Pro Football Focus. And he’s only been sacked eight times. That’s the value of a veteran quarterback who doesn’t panic when he sees a blitz.
So the Hogs will need to rely on pressure from the front four. Or maybe the front three? Razorback fans may recall former defensive coordinator Barry Odom deploying his 3-2-6 Dime defense and dropping into an eight-man zone against Kiffin’s offense back in 2020 and baiting quarterback Matt Corral into six interceptions. That exact strategy probably won’t work Saturday, as it typically works best against inexperienced quarterbacks; Dart is anything but.
Still, a Dime look could work if done right. It baits the opposing team to run the ball and reduces the risk of big plays. That’s exactly how Arkansas used the Dime against Tennessee, whose own veer-and-shoot offensive scheme has some similarities to the Kiffin offense. And the Hogs even deployed some Dime on Saturday in Starkville.
Don’t be surprised if we see more of it against the Rebels.
One reason to like the Dime is that it encourages the offense to run the ball. The Razorbacks would probably love for Ole Miss to try to run the ball: the Razorback defense is top-10 nationally at stopping the run, and Ole Miss’ own run game has gone nowhere in SEC play.
Top running back Henry Parrish Jr. padded his stats back in September, carrying it 36 times for 298 yards and six touchdowns in a two-game stretch against Middle Tennessee and Wake Forest. Then reality set in. In SEC play, Parrish has 63 carries for 228 yards (3.6 per rush). He had 17 explosive runs in the non-conference games and he has just five in SEC games.
Parrish probably doesn’t deserve much of the blame, though. In that two-game September stretch mentioned earlier, 175 of his 298 yards came before contact. In four SEC games, he has 57 rushing yards before contact, including zero on Saturday against Oklahoma. He finished with 15 carries for 44 yards, but all 44 net yards were gained after a defender had already hit him.
Take this 4th-and-1, where the Rebels don’t even try to run up the middle, but the play gets blown up anyway.
In that game, the Rebels had 29 non-sack rushes for 72 yards (2.5 per rush) with zero explosives.
Expect the Razorbacks to dare Ole Miss to run the ball by using multiple deep safeties. That may include some odd-front looks, which means the trio of Landon Jackson, Cam Ball and Eric Gregory will need a repeat of their fantastic performance against Tennessee. If the Rebels struggle to run the ball and can’t hit many big passes, then the Razorback defense will have done its job.
The Sneaky-Good Rebel Defense
Although the Ole Miss offense has underwhelmed a bit, the defense has not. Lane Kiffin’s first three teams struggled defensively, but the surprising hiring of former Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding is paying off for Kiffin.
In his second year on Kiffin’s staff, Golding has the best Rebel defense in a decade. Ole Miss’ offense may have yet to score 30 points in SEC play, but the defense has yet to allow 30 points in SEC play, either.
This defense’s specialty is early downs. They are among the nation’s best teams at knocking offenses off-schedule. They want to shut down the run, get after the quarterback and get the offense into third down, particularly third-and-long.
The only reliable way to beat this defense is to be able to play from behind the chains, as the Ole Miss defense is great at forcing third down but only mediocre at getting third-down stops.
Consider LSU’s 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in the final two minutes to force overtime against Ole Miss two weeks ago. The Tigers had four first downs on that drive. They threw an incomplete pass on all four. So that’s four second-and-10s forced by the Ole Miss defense. Unfortunately for the Rebels, the Tigers converted all four of those series, including a fourth-and-6, a third-and-10, and a fourth-and-5 to eventually score. That’s what we mean when we say “playing from behind the chains.”
The matchup here is a mixed bag for the Razorback offense. The good news is that until Saturday’s 0-for-7 performance against Mississippi State, the Hogs were one of the nation’s best teams on third down, especially third-and-long. So playing “behind the chains” isn’t an issue for this offense. Take the third-quarter touchdown drive that put the Hogs up for good against Auburn: the Razorbacks converted a 3rd-and-13 and a 3rd-and-10 and then scored a 58-yard touchdown on 3rd-and-19. That’s three third-and-long conversions on one drive.
Bobby Petrino is so good when behind the chains precisely because Petrino loves to throw the ball down the field and past the sticks. Every play is a threat to get a first down if the pass is caught. Of course, that’s where the bad news comes in. Protecting all those downfield passes isn’t easy, and Ole Miss has one of the nation’s elite pass rushes. Pro Football Focus credits the Rebels with 192 pressures and 36 sacks, both tops in the SEC this year.
There’s not one guy you can focus on, like LSU’s Bradyn Swinson. Arkansas team pressure leader Landon Jackson has 24 pressures, but five different Ole Miss defenders have at least that many: edges Suntarine Perkins, Princely Umanmielen and Jared Ivey, plus defensive tackles JJ Pegues and Walter Nolen. And while this defense certainly feasted on its weak September competition, the pressure hasn’t stopped in SEC play. Ole Miss recorded 10 sacks on Saturday against Oklahoma.
The Rebels haven’t faced a dual-threat quarterback that is the caliber of a healthy Taylen Green. South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers managed nine non-sack rushes for 86 yards, including carries of 30 and 16, though he was also sacked six times.
The Razorback offense isn’t going anywhere fast if it can’t protect Green. Green was pressured on more than 40% of his dropbacks in five straight games this year (Oklahoma State, UAB, Auburn, Texas A&M, Tennessee), but LSU’s excellent pass rush recorded just 11 pressures (although three of them ended in sacks). Then on Saturday, Mississippi State’s woeful pass rush got pressure on just eight of 33 dropbacks with no sacks, and we saw what Green is capable of with time to throw.
If Green gets time to throw, the Hogs would love to attack the weaker Rebel secondary. The Rebels are happy with one starting cornerback, Trey Amos, who has been pretty good this year. But slot defender Jadon Canady and other cornerback Isaiah Hamilton have struggled in coverage, as has safety John Saunders Jr. and most of the linebackers.
I say “most” of the linebackers, because there’s one who hasn’t: Chris “Pooh” Paul, the former Razorback. Paul’s shocking transfer last offseason surprised Razorback fans and created a lot of bitter feelings, but here’s another knife wound: Paul’s 91 overall grade from PFF is the best among all SEC starting linebackers. Paul’s numbers are overwhelming, as he leads all SEC linebackers with 20 pressures, he’s third among SEC linebackers with 37 run stops and his 3% missed tackle rate is second-lowest among SEC linebackers with at least 300 snaps played.
Behind Paul’s 91 run defense grade from PFF, Ole Miss’ run defense is excellent. This is another huge threat to the Razorbacks, who are at risk of being made one-dimensional like against LSU. The Rebels don’t blow a ton of runs up in the backfield like Texas A&M and Tennessee, but they stop most runs after a short gain and make it difficult for the offense to rely on the run game.
Scoring enough points to win is going to be a tall order for the Razorback offense. As always, the offensive line has to play well. The Hogs need to get something from the run game, even if it’s not much. The Razorbacks got nothing at all against LSU, and that’s not going to cut it. Can Braylen Russell build on his monster game in Starkville? And how healthy will Ja’Quinden Jackson be?
And then Green is going to have to be brilliant. He’s likely going to be under pressure a lot, but if he can escape it, he’ll have some open receivers. And the Razorback offense should probably be aware of a potential Chris Paul revenge game because the former Hog is more than capable of wrecking Petrino’s offensive plans.
What to Watch for in Arkansas vs Ole Miss
This game has a lot of parallels to the Tennessee game. The opponent has a hyped-but-disappointing offense and an elite defense. The opponent is reliant on big plays, but hasn’t been getting them. The opponent stops the run and gets after the quarterback. The good news is that Arkansas beat Tennessee. Can they win a similar game?
Expect a fairly low-scoring affair, though this rivalry frequently features the unexpected. Given Ole Miss’ pass rush and run defense, it’s hard to see the Hogs being able to keep up in a shootout. But if the Razorback defensive line can take over like it did against Tennessee and Taylen Green continues his weekly improvement as a passer, the Hogs have a very good shot at pulling this upset.
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