Ole Miss 31, Vanderbilt 6: The worst performance of the season

Oof.

For reference, Vanderbilt’s offense managed 5.1 yards per play against LSU and its defense allowed 8.1 yards per play. Vanderbilt managed 6.6 yards per play against Purdue and the defense surrendered 7.7. Against Georgia, the offense averaged 3.6 yards per play and the defense allowed 7.8.

And somehow, the offense managed the same success rate against Ole Miss as it did against Georgia, and did worse than it did against Purdue or LSU. There is a reasonable case that Ole Miss is a worse team than any of those (at least, the Purdue team that Vanderbilt actually played; the current Purdue team without Elijah Sindelar or Rondale Moore is certainly worse than Ole Miss.) Vanderbilt made the Ole Miss defense look like the Steel Curtain, and in spite of the Rebels basically not having a passing game (John Rhys Plumlee has a good arm, but let’s just say he looks like a true freshman who’s a better baseball player than he is a football player), the Rebels managed a higher yards-per-play average against the Vanderbilt defense than any other team. Granted, Ole Miss’s success rate was lower than all of those, and its offense was extremely dependent on big plays. And, really, the Rebels only managed seven plays of longer than 20 yards — but two of those went for 78 and 84 yards.

The defensive performance, in other words, could have been better if not for missing tackles in exactly the wrong spots. But the offensive performance was... awful. I said last week that 3-9 is on the table and after this performance, 3-9 is really the most likely outcome. Vanderbilt should still beat UNLV and ETSU, but there has not yet been any performance from this team that would beat any of the five SEC teams left on the schedule.

And as far as the coaching situation goes — well, at this point, it is what it is. I don’t think there’s really much of a reason to dwell on it; we know how this ends. Or at least how it should end.

Individual Stats

Blah.

Blahhhhhhhhhh.

How exactly do you make this group of receivers look bad?

Notes

• The only changes in the starting lineup came on the defensive side of the ball. Brendon Harris replaced the injured Frank Coppet at one of the safety spots, and Feleti Afemui replaced Caleb Peart at linebacker. Allan George also “replaced” Andre Mintze with Vanderbilt opening the game in the nickel. As far as I know, that was Harris’s first start at Vanderbilt.
• True freshman watch: Daevion Davis and Jaylen Mahoney both played in their fifth game, so neither will get a redshirt. In Davis’s case, he’s starting, and Mahoney is playing a lot of snaps on defense, so neither of them are wasting a year. Keyon Brooks played in his fourth game and I would expect he’ll play in at least one more — though it’s not clear that he’s doing much, but injuries to Jamauri Wakefield and Ja’veon Marlow have kind of forced that. Anfernee Orji got into his second game, and Gabe Jeudy appeared for the first time. Meanwhile, Justin Harris didn’t appear after playing last week; I’d guess the staff will be trying to redshirt all of those last three.
• Ole Miss wasn’t throwing much, but that didn’t stop both Brendon Harris and Randall Haynie from having two pass breakups.
• In spite of Ryley Guay being back this week, walk-on Pierson Cooke was once again handling kickoffs. Also, Riley Neal punted once.

What’s Next

Vanderbilt hosts UNLV on Saturday at 3:00 PM CT. UNLV has the same 1-4 record as Vanderbilt. This should be excellent football.