Ole Miss is not going to torch us to the degree most expect and I can prove it

He’ll get his, but I think we’ll win, because the Ole Miss defense sucks.

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Two of those teams are terrible at defending RPOs, which is a strength of our defense.

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What are you basing this on?

We specifically scheme to take away the run component of the RPO (both the give and QB keep). Both Elko and Fisher value stopping the run above all else on defense. We use a safety or nickel to keep their eyes on the QB and take the keep away and our ends crash down into the B gaps on non-obvious passing downs to stop the handoff. It’s why our sack numbers are much lower and why we generally don’t have a lot of safety help over the top.

Once you take away the run threat in an RPO scheme, you corner the offense into either running into a wall over and over or making them one dimensional. Against more complex RPO schemes with good QBs you can still get beat, but in simplistic one or two route read schemes like OMs it’s easy to identify pre snap where the read routes are and you simply shade deep and inside and force the QB to hold the ball or make the most difficult throw in football over and over (the outside shoulder sideline throw). Most college QBs can’t do that and Ta’amu definitely cannot consistently.

Where they get teams is when the run read is there and they can beat you hat on a hat in the box, which results in wide open fly and post reads when the DBs get caught looking. If you scheme for it and your front 7 can take care of the run component with only a single edge defender watching the keep, you can force their hand and their route scheme isn’t complex enough to consistently beat teams.

Now I know what your thinking: But our corners suck. That is true, but doesn’t matter much when most passes are low percentage throws that most often end up being uncatchable. Any DB at any level can shade a fly route when they know it’s coming.

It’s interesting, if you watch the film against some teams you can actually see the DBs pointing to receivers pre snap most plays. That’s them calling the primary and secondary pass reads which will almost always be fly or post routes and in shorter yardage slant routes. OM has a remarkably simplistic scheme and they run the same plays from the same formations every week. They’re predictable, and teams with front 7 talent that scheme for it have consistent success.

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Last year he went for less than 200 yards, 55% and a pick six against this exact same passing defense.

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This exact same passing defense?

I seem to remember a player who had 10 TFL, 4 INT, 2 FF and 2 FR in 2017 that is NOT in our secondary this season.

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We did a good job shutting down the run vs Clemson and Miss St, two RPO offenses, and both teams averaged 11 ypa passing against our defense.

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Clemson runs more old fashioned play action than RPO, especially with Lawrence. His long TD against us was pure play action, not a read (as an example). And besides, their passing tree is far more complex. It’s why the game Bama fits with Watson, they ran NFL level route combinations and Watsoncoukd make all the throws. Ole Miss runs an offense similar to what a lot of 6A Texas high schools run, where each play is either a handoff, keep or a pass to a single read with a checkdown.

Mississippi State runs a slightly different scheme with more pre-determined runs with only a give or keep option. Their passing against us was simply an anomaly, chuck throws and one improvisation that just worked out. Our corners also weren’t playing exclusively pass read like they should be against OM because State runs a lot less true run/pass read. What they did isn’t reproducible consistently especially on the road. I know people want to be all “well it is against our secondary” but that’s simply emotion.

Yeah if nothing else I think our TOP limits their possessions. I just hope we’re scoring tds and not kicking field goals at the end of our drives.

If Mond is the QB we will be kicking FGs and not scoring TDS which will end in yet another loss to a school from Mississippi. (Which according to the majority of this board during Sumlin’s tenure is unforgivable )

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Again, our pass defense ranks:

#113 in passer rating
#112 in yards per pass
#122 in Interceptions
#92 in pass TDs allowed

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They weren’t much better last year, and the only reason they were better at all is because teams could also run at will on us. Ta’amu was stillbad against us because the scheme is easy to defend.

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What does any of that have to do with emotion?

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Because it ignores matchups and schemes and essentially comes from frustration over past failures in distinctly different situations.

It’s like saying a team that struggles against the triple option will automatically struggle against the power-I because they gave up a bunch of rushing yards.

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If Mond is the QB we will be kicking FGs and not scoring TDS which will end in yet another loss to a school from Mississippi. (Which according to the majority of this board during Sumlin’s tenure is unforgivable )

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Again, Ole Miss hasn’t stopped anyone in two years.

And I’ve said since we hired Fisher that every loss in 2018 and 2019 is on Sumlin and his lazy recruiting in 2016 and 2017.