Ole Miss continued practice Wednesday afternoon in preparation of their third Southeastern Conference matchup of the year against No. 9 Texas A&M. Not only will the Aggies bring a high-powered offense to Oxford this Saturday, but they will also have a solid defense that will attempt to keep the Rebels at bay.
“It’s kind of a difficult thing for me to really say,” Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze said. “We’re not like Alabama, we’re not like Arkansas, so those games are not a whole lot we can look at schematically and say this is how they will treat us. Rice we are similar to, Sam Houston a little bit, but those two games they had six or seven guys hurt. We’re looking at a lot of stuff from last year where people were similar to us in what they did. They are younger than they were last year, but they sure are athletic. They have a lot of variety in what they do.”
On the year the Aggies are giving up a pretty even attack for opponents offenses, with them averaging 214.8 yards on the ground and 262 yards through the air.
Offensive line looking to improve
After only racking up 124 yards on the ground last week against Auburn, the Ole Miss offensive line will look to improve upon that mark after having solid rushing performances earlier in the year.
“We didn’t have our best game,” Ole Miss offensive line coach Matt Luke said of the Auburn game. “We had some guys, maybe more this game, lose some one on one matchups, that’s going to happen especially when you have some young guys, but the good thing is they responded and had a really good week of practice.”
Last season against Texas A&M, the Rebels had success moving the ball tallying 159 yards on the ground and 305 through the air, but Luke expects to see a defensive front from the Aggies that will prove to be a challenge.
“A lot of movement,” Luke said of what he saw from the Aggie defensive front. “They had some guys out, so it’s been hard to kind of get a feel, and they lost one of their defensive lineman to an ACL, so they have a guy stepping in, so I haven’t seen a whole bunch of the other guys, but they do a lot of movement, stunting, and blitzing. Obviously it’ll present a big challenge for us.”
Injury updates on Scott and Johnson
Both senior running back Jeff Scott and junior defensive end CJ Johnson were at practice Wednesday, but one was noticeably further along than the other. Scott was fully dressed and participated in practice, while Johnson was sidelined once again and wearing a walking boot.
“He’s all right,” Freeze said of Scott who has a thigh bruise. “He wasn’t 100 percent today, but he’ll be ready to go. He won’t stay out for that.”
Johnson, however, could potentially lack playing time due to his injury.
“Just OK,” Freeze said of how Johnson looked earlier in the morning. “Doctors are coming in tonight and they are going to take an MRI and X-ray of it just to make sure there is nothing structurally wrong. If there is nothing wrong he’s going to try to give it a go. As long as I think we aren’t going to do anything that will cause him to be out the rest of the season or something. If it’s pain, from a bone bruise, which we think it is, he’ll give it a go, or at least try.”
