Two days after walking out of Camping World Stadium after suffering a stinging defeat to Florida State, Ole Miss returned to the practice field on Tuesday.
Head Coach Hugh Freeze spoke about correcting the team’s mistakes and shifting its focus forward, pointing out the Rebels have only three days to face a triple option offense in Wofford that presents some unique challenges.
“Whether you play well and lose or play bad and lose, how you handle that and how you bounce back is just part of it,” Freeze said. “You’re not going to win them all, particularly if you play a schedule like the one we’re playing. The positive is that you went into basically a home game for one of the top teams in the nation and easily could see that we could have won the game.”
Here are some practice notes from Tuesday.
Notes
- The injury bug hit Ole Miss on Wednesday and really hit hard. The Rebels lost two players to knee injuries including running back Eric Swinney, who tore his left ACL on his first carry of the season, and defensive back Ken Webster to a knee injury. Freeze said Webster “tore everything” and both will miss the remainder of the season.
- Senior safety Tony Conner had his knee drained and was held out of practice. Defensive end Fadol Brown was also held out of practice. He’s been hampered with a foot injury for almost nine months now. Both played against Florida State and Freeze did not expect them to be limited after today.
- With Swinney injured and Jordan Wilkins already out, Ole Miss is thin at the running back position, and while no official decision has been made yet, Freeze said Jarrion Street and Kailo Moore are both possibilities to be moved from the secondary to running back. It would be the second time that Street has made such a position switch. Freeze also noted that freshman D’Vaughn Pennamon will not be redshirting at this point and he expects Pennamon to see action at running back on Saturday.
- Should Ole Miss take care of its business against Wofford on Saturday, someone not named Chad Kelly will see snaps at quarterback at some point. Will that be Shea Patterson? Freeze said he didn’t know. “(Patterson) and I will sit down and have a conversation on Friday and see where that goes,” Freeze said.
- Ole Miss is also is thin at defensive back with Webster being out. Freeze said its possible that wide receiver Derrick Jones, who has played defensive back before, could move back to that position if needed. No official decision has been made yet. Freeze also said that being so thin at corner has also made him re-think using Carlos Davis as a return man on special teams. He said Van Jefferson could start returning punts instead of Davis, with Davis still returning kickoffs. “With everyone doing the spread punts, you’re not returning them anyway,” Freeze said. “If the hang time is any good at all you’re not going to return it. So we have to consider that for sure.”
- Freeze said he was pleased with how left tackles Greg Little and Rod Taylor graded out in the game. He said that they both played about 30 plays and he was pleased with both players’ performance. Matt Luke later added that Sean Rawlings graded out highest of all linemen.
