Oklahoma-Ole Miss Preview: Three Keys to the Game

The Sooners can Get Right against the Rebels if they: Don't Get Beat Deep ... Get Mean ... Take What They Can Get

Oklahoma defensive back Dez Malone / Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

OXFORD, MS — So Brent Venables has pressed the reset button for his Oklahoma offense.

Now what?

The Sooners need to play really, really well on Saturday at Ole Miss. The Rebels were preseason top-five in the AP Poll, have a coach with 100 career wins, bring back a roster full of experience and have arguably the most talent from the transfer portal, have a bunch of future NFL guys on the two-deep and, at 5-2, are playing for their College Football Playoff lives.

OU comes in as a 20-point underdog, just 4-3 on the season and 1-3 in their first go-round in the SEC. The Sooners also are playing for their postseason lives, as they’ll be a big underdog in each of their last seven conference games and are in very real peril of finishing no better than 5-7 and out of bowl contention.

Here are three keys for OU to beat Ole Miss on Saturday in Oxford:

Don’t. Get. Beat. (Deep.)

If that almost sounds like a familiar line from “The Walking Dead,” that may be because the OU secondary has at times played like zombies this season.

Opposing teams have scored on pass plays 33, 31, 48, 66 and 44 yards this season, plus punched holes in the defense with a half-dozen other big throws that didn’t cross the goal line.

Ole Miss ranks fourth in the nation at 15.66 yards per completion, and everyone knows coach Lane Kiffin likes to throw it deep. Wideout Tre Harris leads the nation with 987 receiving yards, and his 59 catches from QB Jaxson Dart represent the largest percentage of receptions among any QB/WR duo in the country. Harris averages 16.7 yards per catch, 141 yards per game, and has six touchdown grabs. Antwane Wells averages 21.8 yards per catch and has scored four TDs.

Kani Walker can’t get beat deep. Dez Malone must rise up and play maybe his best game. Eli Bowen must continue to play like a seasoned veteran. And the OU safeties, who have been great in run support this year, can’t be overly concerned about the Rebels running the football, because when they bite on Dart’s play-action fakes, he’ll send one over the top and it’s six points for the home team.

Get Mean

OU’s offensive line has been inexplicably bad this season. There’s no way that five multi-year starters from good to great FBS programs across the country should be having this much trouble.

But as Brent Venables likes to say, you’re either coaching it or you’re allowing it.

Right now, the Sooners’ front five (as well as their buddies at tight end and running back) are simply not playing physical football even though they do seem capable of doing it. That’s not normal for a unit coached by Bill Bedenbaugh, but there it is.

Simply put, Jackson Arnold’s security detail must have their best game of the season against the Rebels. They were eaten alive last week by South Carolina — a home game — and Ole Miss could have better overall talent up front than the Gamecocks did. 

Ole Miss boasts four top-50 defenders, according to Pro Football Focus, led by LB Chris Paul (a nation-leading 90.9 grade), as well as three top-five run defenders (DT J.J. Pegues, DT Walter Nolen and DB Trey Washington). Nolen, a former No. 1 overall recruit who began his career at Texas A&M, has been playing at an All-American level this season. Defensive end Jared Ivey leads the Rebels with five quarterback sacks, while Suntarine Perkins has 4.5 and Princely Umanmeilen has 3.5.

Arnold being made to endure another eight sacks (Michael Hawkins also took one, leading to a catastrophic fumble) is not tenable.

Give Arnold a fair shot to throw the football and maybe something positive will finally happen for the OU offense.

Take What You Can Get

This is a game that Oklahoma absolutely has to win in the margins.

The OU defense against the Ole Miss offense isn’t a good matchup for the Sooners. Neither is the OU offense against the Rebels’ defense. 

So the Sooners have to take advantage of every opportunity the Rebels might give them.

They have to collect points if the opportunistic Oklahoma defense gets a takeaway (Ole Miss has given the football away just seven times this year, with ranks 35th in the nation). 

They have to win the field position battle, and have a leg up with two kickers who have been great this year at starting the opponent on the other side of the field (Ole Miss is 97th nationally in kickoff returns). 

They can’t have sloppy penalties (Ole Miss can be undisciplined, ranking No. 127 nationally in penalties and 130 in penalty yards).

And they have to find big plays — from somewhere. The Rebels have allowed both a blocked kick and a blocked punt this season. They gave up a fourth-and-7 completion for a 63-yard touchdown pass and failed to recover a fumble in the end zone to lose to Kentucky, and gave up a  23-yard TD pass with 27 seconds left in regulation and a 25-yard TD pass in overtime to lose at LSU.