Ole Miss Football: Can Rebels keep ball rolling against Arkansas?

Ole Miss football looks to improve to 5-2 on the road against the Chad Morris-led Arkansas Razorbacks. Who comes out on top?

The Ole Miss Rebels played admirably last week against the UL-Monroe Warhawks and won in a dominating fashion as they likely should against a weaker Sun Belt team.

Jordan Ta’amu finished the day off going 21-for-24 with 374 yards and three touchdowns while also scoring twice on the ground before being relieved later in the game by freshman Matt Corral. He was initially committed to the University of Florida before de-committing from the institution five days before the early signing period and announced his plans to sign with the University of Mississippi.

The highly-recruited pocket passer out of Long Beach, Calif., hadn’t seen many snaps this season but was given the green light later on against the Warhawks and made the absolute most of his opportunities. Corral went 10-for-10 with 143 yards (14.3 YPA) with two touchdown passes as well as 78 yards and a score on the ground. He won’t supplant Ta’amu unless he just completely falls off or gets hurt but it does give Rebel fans something to look forward to.

Arkansas has had an interesting season, to say the least. The Razorbacks began the year with back-to-back losses to group of five programs and then barely generated any points against Auburn. They followed the embarrassing loss Auburn with a seven-point loss to Texas A&M and scored 31 points against Alabama causing Nick Saban to get angry (even though they weren’t even close to winning).

The inconsistencies at quarterback have been the killer for Arkansas with Ty Storey following up a dominant performance against Eastern Illinois with a multiple-turnover game against a less than reputable Colorado State team. The passing game has really affected the running game with most teams aiming to stop the run because of the passing attack’s lack of aggressiveness and it’s inconsistencies.

This specific matchup has also been one of the more entertaining over the years as well.

In 2015, Arkansas found itself down seven in overtime against the Ole Miss Rebels facing fourth-and-25. Brandon Allen found Hunter Henry 15 yards upfield and Henry realized he was short and chunked the ball 20 yards in the opposite direction to, now-Ravens running back, Alex Collins who ran the ball for 27 yards and a first down. They would go onto score a touchdown and upset the Rebels with a two-point conversion.

In 2016, the Rebels found themselves in a fourth-and-game with 15 yards to the first down marker. Chad Kelly lined up in shotgun looking to pass before deciding that he was going to have to take care of it on his own. As he took off running, it looked like he had the first down and when he was just two yards away from the marker, he had the ball dislodged from his hand and the ball rolled out of bounds in the wrong direction. The Razorbacks won 34-30 despite a late surge of points from the Rebels.

Last season, the Razorbacks went down 31-7 and under a strange set of circumstances won 38-37. There was a fake fumble by Cole Kelley early on where he got the pass off but still got lit up. There was a fumble where Ole Miss’ Myles Hartfield didn’t pounce on a fumble because he was too busy celebrating his teammate recovering it even though he hadn’t and Arkansas recovered.

Ole Miss intercepted Kelley with just over six minutes left in the game and on the first play fumbled a handoff which went for six and cut the Rebel lead to 37-35. After a three-and-out from Ole Miss, a bonehead pass interference gave Arkansas a new set of downs in which then let to a game-winning field goal despite Ole Miss icing kicker Connor Limpert three times prior.

Does 2018 hold some similar craziness similar to the years prior? Let’s find out.

Date: Saturday, Oct. 13
Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
Location: Little Rock, Ark.
Venue: War Memorial Stadium
TV: SEC Network
Live Stream: WatchESPN or FuboTV

Keys to Victory

For Ole Miss to win this one, it can’t make the big mistakes that have led to previous losses. Ta’amu has to avoid throwing picks or bobbling handoffs and the defense can’t break down in the second half. Arkansas hasn’t looked the greatest on offense but they did hang 31 on Alabama last week.

With Chad Morris calling the plays, it’s hard to overlook the Razorbacks trying some things to right the ship and he might just pull out all the stops. Keep it simple and try not to get too fancy and put yourself in trouble.

Arkansas needs to find a way to get the offense going. Storey needs to play like we’ve seen him play at times this season or Kelley needs to open up the ground game by at least being consistent. The Ole Miss defense is not that great and most teams with any sort of talent should be able to score points (i.e. Kent State and UL-Monroe hanging 817 yards of offense combined on them).

Also, Ta’amu averages 10-plus yards per attempt over his career and likes to throw downfield to his receivers. If the Razorbacks can force a turnover once or twice on those big plays, it would do wonders for their chances of winning this one.

Betting Odds

Courtesy of OddsShark

Line: Ole Miss -7
Over/Under: 67.5

Prediction

This game usually has some weirdness around it which leads me to believe that there will be more to follow. There will be some sort of late fumble or trick play that gives the Arkansas fans some hope in the final minutes of the game but Arkansas has just been too lucky over the past couple seasons to really pull this one out.

Final Score: Ole Miss 37, Arkansas 32