I felt like Lane Kiffin out-coached Josh Heupel tonight, which feels a little weird to say considering Ole Miss was ranked No. 13 and there's a very good chance we win that game if Hooker doesn't get hurt at the end.
But for as good as Heupel has been at calling plays this season, I felt like his play-calling was very suspect in the first half tonight. It's understood that he was hamstrung by all the injuries. Not having Tiyon Evans hurt. Losing Cade Mays hurt even more, especially considering how thin the OL already was. But it didn't feel like Heupel did anything to adjust his play-calling to meet the circumstances in the first half. After 4 Ole Miss sacks, it would've been nice to see us rolling Hooker outside the pocket.
Then on the final drive of the first half, we finally started to click a little bit and wound up with the FG. Came out and did pretty well in the second half. Then we get the ball back with 11 minutes left with an opportunity to take the lead, and it was like Heupel started trying to slow things down so that he could shorten the game. We've already proved this season (including last week) that our offense doesn't execute very well when we slow it down. They're trained to go fast and that's what they know. It was bizarre that we took our foot off the gas, and those run calls on 1st & 20 and 2nd & 17 before the punt were even more bizarre. I felt like that possession was a key point in the game. Overall, I kinda felt the moment was a little too big for Heupel as a play-caller tonight.
I also was extremely disappointed that we got sucked into Kiffin's fake injury game. All those fake injuries were a worse look for Kiffin than the unruly students were for Tennessee, though the sports media will never tell it that way. (In fact, Pete Thamel tonight claimed that he'd never seen fans delay a game before, which is a hilarious statement.) But as I'm fuming about Kiffin's lack of integrity — how can a guy who runs a hurry-up offense turn around and instruct his players to fake injuries to prevent the other team from running the same type of tempo on offense — we start faking injuries too. I'd have to go back and watch the game to know how many we faked and how many were legit but I know there were at least 1-2 instances where we had guys go down on the field to stop play.
On the flip side, it was infuriating to watch Corral gain 222 yards on the ground because we could never seem to adjust and find ways to contain him, and yet our defense held that high-octane Ole Miss offense to just seven points in the second half. That was most impressive. Given the talent (or lack thereof), I continue to be fairly impressed with the play of our defense. Our pass coverage was pretty good tonight, though we benefited from a couple of drops by Ole Miss receivers.
All in all, if Kiffin is being honest, he was incredibly fortunate to escape with a win.
I was at the game and think the fake injuries played as much of a role in the turmoil as the bad ref calls.
