Week 7
One big bet so far this week:
Ole Miss at Arkansas. Arkansas +6. 10 units.
Ive seen it too many times this season. Ole Miss offense dominates teams with inferior athletes and coaching (La Monroe, Southern Illinois) and gets completely shut down when playing skilled athletes and solid coaching (LSU, Bama). We saw this last year too with Ole Miss. Obviously Arkansas falls somewhere in between the ULM/So. Illinois and the LSU/Bama. But Arkansas does seem to have some life despite an atrocious start to season. They hung tough against A&M. And they at least kept playing hard versus Bama which is more than most teams can say. Admittedly some of those 31 points were in garbage time but it’s not easy to score against Bama’s backups. Bama second string D is far superior to Ole Miss starting D. How bad is Ole Miss D? They are 14th (out of 14) in SEC in yards allowed. That likely doesn’t surprise anyone. More surprising is that they are ranked 14th in both passing yards allowed AND rushing yards allowed. They are giving up 300+ passing and 200 yards rushing. And this is despite playing three patsies (So. ill, Kent St and ULM). They give up more than 100 additional yards compared to the second worst sec defense. To make matters worse Ole Miss has lost 3 out of their 5 starting DBs. They’ve switched two RBs to safety last week and one is already second string.
Now im not saying Chad Morris is some coaching savante. And I’m sure there are some Ark fans here that can’t stand him thus far. But he’s still head and shoulders above Ole Miss current coaching staff. Matt Luke is a nice guy but just completely in over his head. He got the interim label last year when the Freeze escort issue arose. He was actually a sub par OL coach on the hot seat of even retaining his status as position coach. The OC is Longo (discussed his offense plenty in previous posts in this thread). He came from FCS level so zero D1 experience prior to last year. And finally the DC is McGriff who also has never been a DC on the D1 level until last year. Chad Morris versus McGriff is a gigantic mismatch. Ole Miss coaching inexperience is really highlighted when they play what should be an evenly matched game. They just don’t have the game planning and play calling experience to win these games.
Lastly Ole Miss does not play well at Arkansas. I think Ole Miss has won at Arkansas 3 times in last 25 years.
I will I’ll also be keeping a close eye on this total and the Arkansas team total.