Ole Miss vs. LSU: Box score rundown

Following each game, I’ll be posting numbers that tell a broader story than what a traditional box score may offer. Looking at Bill C.’s stat profiles is a great way to quickly identify a team’s strengths and weaknesses. If you’re curious, here’s a glossary with detailed definitions, but I’ll include some of the more pertinent stuff here to provide some context.

• A successful play occurs when you gain: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.
• Explosive/big plays are defined here as runs of 12+ yards or passes of 16+ yards.
• A scoring opportunity is a first down inside the opponent’s 40-yard line.
• Passing downs are defined as second down with at least eight yards to go or third/fourth with at least five to go. All other situations are standard downs.

The table above indicates that despite the fact that LSU was more consistent moving the ball (success rate), Ole Miss kept themselves in it for much of the game through big plays and field position/special teams. It’s tempting to think that had the Rebels connected on a few long passes, avoided turnovers, and not settled for field goals on three different occasions inside the Tigers’ 23, this could have had a different outcome. That’s...one way of looking at it.

Looking at the actual yardage tells a vastly different story, suggesting that LSU probably should have had this game wrapped up earlier than they did. The way we define big plays here, Ole Miss technically kept up in that department, but LSU did a lot more with those chances in the open field.

They picked up a first down inside the Rebels’ 40 on nine of their 12 possessions, but only reached the end zone on four of those opportunities. Ole Miss certainly had some chances to make things interesting, but it never should have been all that close.

Perhaps the most telling part of the graphs is in the play calling tab, which shows the offense’s stubborn commitment to the pass despite the surprising success they were finding on the ground. There actually was a window in the first half in which they ran more than they passed, but once their run rate dipped below 50 percent in the third, it stayed there.

Following Wilkins’ 28-yard touchdown run to make it 16-23, they ran the ball just five more times in the game. A lot of that obviously had to do with the Tigers finally widening the gap, but Ole Miss put themselves in some third down holes down the stretch when passing on early downs didn’t work out.

To be fair, Phil Longo did leverage the run game in a unique way when it came to getting out of passing downs. Heading into Saturday, Ole Miss ranked 126th in terms of how often they ran in these situations (17.8 percent). Against LSU, they ran on 11 of those 22 plays, which helped make their intentions less obvious when they fell behind the chains. The Tigers have allowed opponents to convert passing downs less than 26 percent of the time, so that mark of 41 percent for Ole Miss isn’t something to shrug off.

I briefly mentioned before that LSU’s explosiveness was a bit understated by saying they only had 10 big plays, and it shows here, as over half of their 593 total yards came on those snaps. They gained 26 or more yards on six different plays, with four of those coming from Derrius Guice on the ground.

It’s not a shock that outside of a 40-yard gain for Dawson Knox and that 28-yard run for Wilkins, the Rebels’ next biggest play went for just 17. Dave Aranda’s defense ranks 19th in IsoPPP (measures the magnitude of plays), so Ole Miss wasn’t going to have many more chances downfield after those early drops.

Given his season-ending injury, it wouldn’t be fair or even prudent to lay much criticism down on Shea Patterson. His ugly stat line came from some atypical struggles on standard downs, and it didn’t help that he played on a bad knee for most of the game.

We still don’t have a great idea of where to set expectations for Ta’amu, but the early results are somewhat promising. If he turns out to be no more than a solid runner and dink-and-dunk passer, that could limit the offense, but the scariest defensive matchups may be past this group.

One of the low-key tragic nuggets from the game was how ineffective Matt Cannada’s offense was when Ole Miss actually forced them into obvious passing situations. Etling got sacked on three of those four dropbacks, but given how well LSU maintained leverage most of the time, that deficiency had no say on the outcome of the game.

Last night’s game made me really wish stats that tracked how far passes traveled through the air were readily available in college football. That’s because it felt like a good chunk of Etling’s passes were at or behind the line of scrimmage, made most evident here by the fact that their leading receiver was a running back. Against the Rebel defense, that obviously didn’t matter, but it’s not gonna work to nearly the same degree against....say...Alabama.

• Opportunity Rate is the percentage of carries that gain 5+ yards.
• Stuff Rate is the percentage of runs that are stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage.
• Highlight Yards per Opportunity measures how much you’re able to do after getting to the second level of the defense.
• QB runs don’t include sacks.

Jordan Wilkins was one of the only bright spots in last night’s defeat, and we’re watching him evolve as a runner. He used to struggle at finding the hole and getting to the second level, but his opportunity rate has taken a jump over the last four games, after showing some hesitation out of the backfield to start the year.

Guice’s gaudy yardage numbers speak for themselves, but it’s also remarkable that the Rebels couldn’t pin him at or behind the line of scrimmage on any of his 22 carries. Stats like yards after contact could also be useful here, because he definitely had tacklers around him in the backfield more than once.

Hi Breeland!

Havoc plays are tackles for loss + passes defensed + forced fumbles.