While the Rebel defense struggled at times to defend their own offensive coordinator’s new scheme, they stood tall when it mattered most to ensure that they wouldn’t be passed on the scoreboard.
The 2019 Ole Miss Grove Bowl went the way of the defense by the score of 29-25 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday. The game capped off 14 days of spring practice and saw a handful of young players burst onto the scene on both sides of the ball.
“It was a competitive game. We saw some flashes from some of our young guys, which was good. Our defense, overall, controlled the line of scrimmage,” head coach Matt Luke said. “Overall, we got what we wanted, trying to keep it vanilla. I wanted us to see a competitive game and get after it. I thought we accomplished that.”
The defensive unit was spotted a 27-0 lead at the beginning of the game with the offense trying to get out of that hole. The defense could get points by creating turnovers and converting them into points.
New offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez pointed out that despite having a quarterback in Matt Corral that can run his new-look offense, it was not on full display during this game.
“Today wasn’t pretty but overall in the spring, we put a lot in, a lot more than I thought we could. They handled it pretty well. Certainly, we have a long way to go at every position, there is no question. The inexperience shows up sometimes, so you have to teach them the fundamentals and a new scheme. That makes it a little more difficult, but they’re working hard,” Rodriguez
said. “This will be the most important summer for most of these guys than they’ve ever had.”
Matt Corral did most of the damage through the air at quarterback. He completed 22 of his 37 passes for 240 yards and a touchdown pass to Braylon Sanders mid way through the second quarter. Tylan Knight, a newly converted slot receiver, led all receivers with 91 yards on 5 catches. Knight also caught a touchdown from early freshman enrollee Grant Tisdale.
“The reason he showed up to play in the spring is because he’s such a competitor,” Rodriguez said. “He’s a very versatile guy who can do a lot at a lot of different positions.”
Freshman early enrollee Snoop Conner led all rushers with 52 yards on 10 carries. Kinkead Dent is also a freshman early enrollee who got 50 yards on the ground at the quarterback position.
Defensively, the Rebels had to adjust to their new defensive coordinator’s 3-4 scheme throughout the spring. A big part of that was having defensive ends shift to outside linebackers in certain situations. New defensive coordinator Mike McIntyre believes that this game showed that it can be done, but needs polishing.
“I think they have improved. At first they were like fish out of water and now they can swim out of water, but not for very long,” McIntyre said. “I’ve seen steady improvement everyday.”
Mohammed Sanogo led all tacklers with 8 while junior college transfer linebacker Sam Williams had 6. The defense forced 3 interceptions by C.J. Miller, Kam’ron White and Ryder Anderson. White kept the offensive team from tying the game with an end zone interception returned all the way back the other way on a two point conversion following Hunter Holt’s score. That score gave the defense their only points as time expired.
The Rebels will open the 2019 season at Memphis on Saturday, Aug. 31.
