Ole Miss 30 Kentucky 23 - Thoughts

One of the striking differences between broadcasts of college football now compared to then is the focus on the head coach. It really struck me, watching old Sugar Bowls from the 1960s, how little the head coach was mentioned, and aside from the pre-game introduction, he was never shown stalking the sidelines. The cameras remained on the game and the players. I mention it because Ole Miss has Lane Kiffin, who is by far the biggest star coach it has ever had, in an era in which the head coach is everything. Over half of this Ole Miss team is transfers, which is how it goes nowadays in the NIL wild west, but it means a lack of continuity. Fans can only count on a player being in the program for one season. That makes the head coach the only thing on a team that offers any continuity from season to season. Somehow, Ole Miss has a very good coach who is also on the bleeding edge of what’s going on in college footballs business side. The Rebels find themselves in the middle of a golden age.

This current iteration of the Ole Miss Rebels is as complete a football team as I have seen at Ole Miss. Austin Simmons doesn’t look good to me at all, though. He can’t run. Jaxson Dart on this team would be a playoff team, but Simmons is prone to throwing interceptions, and I could tell against Kentucky that the coaches were keeping the passing plays simple. Luckily, the running game looks greatly improved over last year’s squad, and that took a lot of pressure off Simmon’s shoulders, but also these receivers are very good, and he was able to complete a lot of throw-and-catch passes out to the flat that turned into big gains. Simmons can’t run all that well, either, especially compared to Dart. Not even in the same universe as Dart, so yeah, it’s a pretty big drop-off from Dart to Simmons. Sure, he is going to improve as he gets more experience, but this Kentucky game showed me Simmons isn’t going to be a huge star, especially when he went down with a tweaked ankle in the fourth quarter and Chambliss came in as the replacement. Chambliss can run much better than Simmons, like in the ideal you’d want to swap them out on running plays. Certainly, I got a strong sense about this team, and like I said, this is as close to a complete team as I have seen. All the parts are in place for Ole Miss to have a good season, except at quarterback. Ole Miss needs Simmons to be a good bit better than he was against Kentucky to get into the playoff picture, I think. Simmons isn’t bad, but he isn’t good, either.

And while it is on my mind, have you noticed that we aren’t getting any flopping this season? That’s because there’s a new rule in place to prevent it. They ought to call that the Kiffin rule, because no coach shined more light on the practice.