Normally, these opening paragraphs would have sentences attempting to set the stage, but like everyone else, I’m pressed for time because travel preparations for Oxford are upon us.
Instead of a setup I spend too much time on, here’s me telling you we’re diving right into the meat and potatoes. Wherever you are, I wish you safe travels to Oxford, and I look forward gathering together as we watch our record-setting sons set even more records.
What we know
REMATCH – Ole Miss vs. Tulane: Tu Fast Tu Furious
Not sure that title works but whatever. As you may recall,
Ole Miss beat Tulane earlier this season, 45-10.
Since that game, Ole Miss went 7-1 with a loss to Georgia, and Tulane went 8-1 with a loss to UT San Antonio but won their conference championship game. If you watched Pete Golding’s media time (or any player or assistant coach’s) this week, you know the theme preached to players was the December 20th Tulane team is not the September 20th Tulane team.
Ole Miss dominated the September 20th game, and they didn’t get any help from Tulane. The Green Wave only turned it over once (Ole Miss also had 1 turnover), and it was a physical and speed mismatch across the board.
Tulane is a good team with good coaches, but the size-to-speed ratio matchup is still heavily tilted in Ole Miss’ favor.
Stats!
Using matchup advanced stats from Parker Fleming, Game on Paper, and TeamRankings, let’s hit the highlights of the Five Factors. If you’re unfamiliar with the Five Factors, these are:
- Explosiveness
- Efficiency
- Finishing Drives
- Field Position
- Turnovers
If you win all or most of those categories, you’re probably going to win the game. So let’s see how Ole Miss and Tulane match up in these categories.
Explosiveness
Two easy ways to measure this are yards per play and points per play. The more explosive plays you have, the easier it is for the offense to put scoring drives together.
Yards per play:
- Ole Miss offense – 14th vs. Tulane defense – 49th
- Tulane offense – 26th vs. Ole Miss defense – 50th
Points per play
- Ole Miss offense – 17th vs. Tulane defense – 30th
- Tulane offense – 37th vs. Ole Miss defense – 34th
These aren’t weighted for opponent strength, but a big ol’ red flag for Tulane is not being good at preventing explosive plays against their schedule. Ole Miss played much better defenses and piled up explosive plays.
Efficiency
The best ways to measure this are success rate (gaining a certain percentage of needed yards on specific downs) and 3rd/4th down conversions. Since I’m pulling from multiple sources, I’ll give a summary to keep this from being 12 miles long.
Ole Miss’ offensive success rate is good to great (especially in the pass), and Tulane’s defensive success rate is not great. Fleming and Game on Paper have them in the 90s to 100s, and they are worse against the pass. That is OF NOTE.
On offense, Tulane has a good success rate in the passing game, but they struggle to run the ball. The Ole Miss defense is good against the pass and is a mix of bad to mediocre against the run.
However, down the stretch, when Ole Miss played SEC team who struggled to run the ball, they were able to handle those offenses.
Finishing Drives
Fleming has a great metric called points per quality drive (inside the opponent’s 40).
- Ole Miss offense – 39th vs. Tulane defense – 72nd
- Tulane offense – 65th vs. Ole Miss defense – 43rd
We can also look at red zone scoring percentages (touchdowns and field goals) via TeamRankings.
- Ole Miss offense – 55th vs. Tulane defense – 43rd
- Tulane offense – 38th vs. Ole Miss defense – 90th
Both teams will give up points on drives. And as you can see, teams who get into the red zone against Ole Miss are getting some kind of points.
The key for both defenses will be turning potential touchdown drives into field goal drives.
Field Position
The idea being, if your offense gets the ball in a good spot, that’s fewer yards they need to score points. And if your defense takes the field with an offense backed up, that’s more yards they need to score points.
Based on Fleming and Game on Paper, Tulane is elite in winning field position. Their offense gets shorter fields, and their defense takes the field with offenses backed up.
Ole Miss is blah to bad in offensive and defensive field position categories. This is one of Tulane’s edges, and if they’re going to hang around, they’ll need to have this advantage on every possession.
Turnovers
Pretty simple. Turnovers take away scoring opportunities from your offense and creating turnovers gives your offense more scoring opportunities.
- Ole Miss offense giveaways per game – 22nd vs. Tulane defense takeaways per game – 15th
- Tulane offense giveaways per game – 35th vs. Ole Miss defense takeaways per game – 106th
Ole Miss doesn’t turn it over, and Tulane generates turnovers. If Tulane is going to have a shot, they have to generate turnovers. And against an Ole Miss defense that doesn’t generate turnovers, they can’t give any possessions away.
TL;DR
Along with the size-to-speed ratio advantage, Ole Miss has an advantage against Tulane’s defense. And as we’ve seen in the second half of the season, the Ole Miss defense has been mostly fine against mediocre offenses.
To be in the game late, Tulane will need turnover and field position advantages and force field goals from the Ole Miss offense.
Pettiness
Here is Pete Golding (with a fresh haircut) standing in front of a College Football Playoff backdrop and answering questions about his team playing a playoff game while Lane Kiffin tweets at home:
Here is Bryan Brown, co-defensive coordinator, standing in front of a College Football Playoff backdrop and answering questions about his team playing a playoff game while Lane Kiffin tweets at home:
Here is Joe Judge, quarterbacks coach, standing in front of a College Football Playoff backdrop and answering questions about his team playing a playoff game while Lane Kiffin tweets at home:
Shout-out to the LSU staffer who shows this to Kiffin.
Let’s not end this section on that note
How about Micah Ginn, Will Day, and the rest of the video production crew bringing in David Kellum to hit us in the feels.
As someone who works in advertising, I am very aware of how the generations angle is emotional terrorism. But hearing, “For every Ole Miss Rebel who has kept the passion alive, this one is for you,” still got me.
I think about all the people who aren’t with us and how much they would love this.
What we kinda know
Roles
Golding emphasized the goal is to keep things as close as possible to the way they’ve been all season. For him, the biggest change has been less time in the defensive room (meaning Bryan Brown runs those planning meetings), and he’ll move down to the field to call the defense during games.
On offense, Charlie Weis Jr. will have almost total in-game autonomy for the first time. Kiffin will not be there to talk with him or overrule him, but Golding and Judge will obviously have some degree of influence.
I’d like to think these won’t be massive adjustments, but after 12 games and 3 months of things being done a certain way, everyone is going to be doing something new-ish in the most important game of the season.
While it’s fun to roast Lane for being an adult baby, he’s a ball coach who sees how to cook defenses as well as anyone. His insights, particularly in-game insights, will be missed.
That’s a long way of saying we know roles will change, but we’re a little iffy on how everyone performs in their new roles.
What we don’t know
A refined comprehensive list
- What does the 3-week layoff do to Ole Miss?
- Is Lane texting/emailing Jon Sumrall everything about Ole Miss’ calls/checks/tendencies?
- How many times will Golding switch his headset over to the offensive channel and say, “What the shit?”
- Will Ole Miss play “Ain’t Life Grand” during pre-game?
- WHAT WILL THE MANNINGS THINK?
Unrelated to all this
RIP Joe Ely
What an artist. A million songs to choose from, but I’ll go with one of his and a Billy Joe Shaver cover.
