CFB · PREVIEWS · COLLEGE-FOOTBALL · SEC · MISSOURI · OLE-MISS
Austin Simmons Returns to Oxford, and Missouri Wants to Run Right Through Ole Miss
By MVPeav · @MVPeav ·
Austin Simmons walks back into Vaught-Hemingway on Saturday afternoon in black and gold, and the team that moved on from him has to line up and deal with him for four quarters. That's the headline, and it's a good one.
But the reason I like Missouri in this game has almost nothing to do with Simmons's arm. It's the stuff around him: a Tigers run defense that makes the ground game disappear and an Ole Miss defense that has been letting people run on it since September.
Ole Miss is going to score. Trinidad Chambliss is a real problem. The question is whether Missouri can grind it out on the ground and hang onto the ball long enough to turn this into a slugfest instead of the track meet Ole Miss wants. Kickoff is 3:30 ET in Oxford.
Missouri: Inefficient, Somehow Lethal, and Stingy Up Front
Missouri's offense succeeds on 42% of its plays. That's 99th in the country, which is bad, and yet they put up 35.8 a game, which is 37th. Those two numbers are not supposed to live in the same box score.
The way they pull it off is that they don't give the ball away and the defense keeps handing it back to them. Missouri is +5 in turnover margin, 8th in FBS, and that is the whole trick. You can be sloppy on 2nd and 7 if you never give the other guys a short field and you get a couple of your own.
The other half is the front seven. Missouri allows 78.8 rushing yards a game, 6th in FBS, and 2.5 yards a carry. Teams just stop trying after a while. That came against a schedule that includes a 45-17 win over Florida and a 38-21 win at Kansas, with the one loss coming 24-31 at Mississippi State, so it's not a stat built on cupcakes.
The bad news is RB Ahmad Hardy is out on the SEC availability report, which takes a chunk out of the thing Missouri does best. Somebody else has to carry the load in a game that's going to be decided on the ground.
Ole Miss: Points Machine With a Screen Door on Defense
Chambliss is completing over 70% of his throws with 1,435 yards, 11 TDs and 4 INTs, and he's running an offense that succeeds on 52% of its plays, 3rd in FBS. They throw for 300.6 yards a game, 10th in the country. Ole Miss scores 38.8 a game, and when they're rolling it looks easy.
The defense is where it gets ugly. Ole Miss allows 28.0 a game, 80th in FBS, and it's worse than that under the hood: +0.18 EPA per play allowed, which is 115th. The run defense gives up 176.4 yards a game, 104th in the country. That's not a soft spot, that's an open door.
Look at their résumé and it tracks. They beat LSU 32-24 at home and Louisville 41-38 on a neutral field, and they lost 28-52 at Florida. Every one of those is a shootout. This team wins by outscoring you, and when the offense has an off day, there's no safety net.
And now CB Edwin Joseph is out after ankle surgery, which is the last thing a defense ranked 115th in EPA needed. RB Kewan Lacy is listed healthy after a Week 3 shoulder injury, so at least they have their back.
The Matchup: Missouri's Ground Game vs. Ole Miss's Soft Middle
Missouri wants to run it 45 times and make this boring. Ole Miss gives up 176.4 on the ground a game. Even without Hardy, that's the plan, and I don't see a reason to change it.
The flip side is Chambliss against a Missouri pass defense that allows 223.8 yards a game, 100th in FBS. That number looks scary until you look at the per-attempt figure: 6.6 yards an attempt, 55th. Teams throw a ton on Missouri because they can't run on them, not because the secondary is a sieve. Chambliss will get his yards. The question is whether he gets them efficiently or whether it's 45 throws and a couple of mistakes.
Lacy, meanwhile, is going to have a long day against a front that gives up 2.5 a carry. Ole Miss is winning this through the air or not at all.
The Revenge Tour Lands in Oxford
Simmons, WR Cayden Lee and CB Chris Graves Jr. all left Ole Miss for Missouri. Simmons got hurt at Kentucky last season and lost the job to Chambliss, and he never got it back. Lane Kiffin is gone to LSU, Pete Golding is the head coach now, so the building Simmons walks into isn't quite the one he left.
I love the revenge story here. Losing your job to a Ferris State transfer while you're hurt had to be painful, even if he seemed to handle it with class the whole way. And now he gets to come back balling out, with a chance to show it on the field where he got benched.
The numbers make it even better. Simmons has 1,434 yards, 14 TDs and 1 INT. Chambliss has 1,435 yards, 11 TDs and 4 INTs. One yard apart, and the guy who lost the job has the cleaner line. Lee is questionable on the report, so whether he gets his own moment is a Saturday question.
Winner of this one likely takes the driver's seat for a Playoff bid, which is a lot of stakes for a game that was already personal.
How My Sims See It
My sims have Missouri winning 57% of the time across 10,000 runs, with a median score of Missouri 30, Ole Miss 27. The middle half of outcomes runs from Missouri by 14 to Ole Miss by 7, so this is a coin flip with a lean, not a blowout.
The version where Missouri wins is the one I described above. The Tigers rush for about 210 yards in their wins and only 147 in their losses, and they turn it over about 0.9 times when they win versus 1.8 when they lose. Jamal Roberts lands around 76 rushing yards at the median, which is the Hardy-less version of grinding it out. Hold onto the ball, run it 200 times, go home.
The version where Ole Miss wins looks like Chambliss throwing for his median 297 while the Rebels actually find some running room, about 124 yards on the ground in their wins compared to 85 in their losses. If Lacy gets going at all, the whole thing tilts.
Bottom Line: Run It, Hold It, Go Home Happy
The Florida results tell you most of what you need. Missouri beat the Gators 45-17 at home. Ole Miss lost to them 28-52 in the Swamp. Same opponent, a 52-point swing in margin, and the difference was the Gators ran all over one of these defenses and got nowhere against the other.
I've got no dog in this fight, but the revenge angle adds a little extra edge, and college football is the place where that stuff actually translates on the field. Ole Miss channeled it themselves to beat Kiffin earlier this year. Now Simmons gets to try the same trick on them.
I'll be cheering for Missouri. Mostly tho I just think this is going to be a fun one.