Wednesday’s practice is something that Hugh Freeze hopes can give his team something to model after. After Monday and Tuesday left him unimpressed, Wednesday certainly did not.
“It was a good day,” Freeze said following Wednesday’s work. “I really like the way we went about our work today in meetings and out here on the field. We’ve got to hopefully get an understanding that that’s what you do on a work day.”
Freeze said that Monday and Tuesday’s practices were lacking attention to detail. He said he hopes a practice like today can show them that they must come to work in the precious time they have.
“Hopefully we didn’t waste too much time, but today was a good day,” He said.
Twenty minutes of the practice, according to Freeze, was spent working on special teams.
Freeze credited today’s special teams work in practice to his days at Arkansas State where he served as offensive coordinator under then head coach Steve Roberts.
“I like the way he put an emphasis on (special teams),” Freeze noted. “Today we spent 20 minutes on (special teams), so that’s a pretty good piece of practice for you to spend on it.
“I hope it pays off. We were pretty solid the other night (against Vanderbilt), except for that last kickoff coverage.”
While Freeze noted that it is too early to begin to evaluate the running back position, he did note they were up against a good Vanderbilt defensive line last Thursday night and that he felt much better about their performance in the second half.
As far as the defense goes, Ole Miss will be going up against Southeastern Missouri this weekend, and Freeze says they do “a lot of stuff.”
“They do a lot of movement, a lot of twists,” he said. “That’s their answer. They try to play coverage and do a lot of games up front.
“They’ll make you look bad on some plays because (of their scheme), but hopefully we can catch them on some of them and have good play calling at the right time that gives us an advantage.”
Freeze also noted that the Redhawks’ defense is similar to some he saw while at Arkansas State, and they mainly stay back in coverage and try to prevent the big play.
On the injury front, it appears that receiver Vincent Sanders is ahead of schedule.
“I don’t know that even if (Sanders) was ready that I would play him in the Texas game,” Freeze said. “I want to make sure he gets well. But he’s ahead of schedule a little bit.”
Freeze noted that he will be rotating four guards on Saturday and that he also might rotate senior tackle Emmanuel McCray into that mix.
Then Freeze again spoke of segmenting the season into different parts. He said that before the conclusion of the first part of the season, the first four games, he would like to have his rotation finalized.
