The Rebels officially start SEC play this weekend, and their first opponent is not one to be taken lightly.
Ole Miss heads to Tuscaloosa in hopes of getting their first 4-0 start since 2015. In that same 2015 season, the Rebels opened up SEC play against Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
In the 2020 season, the Rebels gave the defending national champions a run for their money for over three quarters of play, only allowing the Alabama offense to pull away right at the end. This same offense featured multiple first round NFL draft picks and is considered as one of the greatest Alabama teams of all time. While the Alabama team looks very different this year, they do have a tendency of reloading instead of just replacing. Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin has expressed his feelings on heading back to Bryant-Denny and facing a very good team coming off a bye week.
“It’s good to go out there and compete against a great team, as we all know,” Kiffin said. “You don’t see any holes in this team. It’s not only challenging to play them but to play them there. We’ve never really played in front of a crowd in two years. It’s a true road game. We’re going to have our hands full. We’re a huge underdog for a reason.”
Bryant-Denny Stadium is notorious for being a place where opponents’ dreams come to die. The last team that won in that stadium was LSU in 2019. The same team that went on to win the National Championship that year. Before LSU, the last time a team beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa was in 2015. It came from the Ole Miss Rebels.
One of the biggest storylines for this matchup is that both quarterbacks are Heisman contenders. Matt Corral and Bryce Young are currently sitting at one and two in the Heisman rankings with very similar stats so far this season. Both quarterbacks are very familiar with each other and are both from Southern California. They have become two of the most popular faces in college football this season.
Corral has completed 68% of his passes for 997 yards and 14 touchdowns so far this season. Corral was criticized last year due to the amount of interceptions, specifically his 11 interceptions in two games. This year, Corral has yet to turn the ball over.
Corral is not able to put up these numbers himself and has veteran wide receiver Dontario Drummond to thank for that. Drummond was 1 of 8 wide receivers to be added to the Biletnikoff Award Watch List. This award recognizes the outstanding receiver in college football every season, and last year it went to Heisman Award winner and Alabama receiver Devonta Smith. Through three games, Drummond has hauled in 20 catches for 339 yards, along with four touchdowns. The senior wideout ranks eighth in the FBS with 113 yards per game. He has also recorded a touchdown pass in the past eight games.
Going into this game against Alabama, Drummond, along with the other receivers, will need to put up huge numbers to defeat the Crimson Tide. Braylon Sanders and Jonathan Mingo have been players to keep an eye out for, and have a combined five touchdowns this season.
The running back room is known as the four-headed beast, with four very capable players. Jerrion Ealy, Kentrell Bullock, Henry Parrish Jr. and Snoop Connor have excelled so far this season and will be essential to getting the win over the Tide. Having depth to the offense is something that Lane Kiffin and Jeff Lebby have excelled at, and they have utilized it to put up obscene numbers in 13 games as Ole Miss coaches. Last season against Alabama, Ole Miss rushed for 291 yards, along with 379 receiving yards. The offense had no problem putting up numbers, but last year’s defense was the area that struggled.
This season, they have already made a drastic improvement. The Landshark defense finished the year in 126th place in total defense. This year, through three games, the defense is sitting at 59th in total defense. The Rebels gave up 63 points to the National Champions last year, and all indications show that that probably won’t happen again. Alabama head coach Nick Saban talked this week about the improvements he has seen so far this season.
“This year,” Saban said, “because they’ve had the spring, they’ve had the summer, they’ve had a year, they know what kind of adjustments they need to make relative to the players they have, and they’ve done a really good job of that.”
Kickoff against Alabama on Oct. 2 is set for 2:30 p.m. CT and will be televised by CBS as the SEC Game of the Week.
