– Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly gets sacked by three LSU defenders during Saturday’s game. Ole Miss would go on to lose the game 38-21. (Photo by Cameron Brooks)
What a difference a year can make. Last season, when the Rebels faced off against LSU, Leonard Fournette was in the middle of a phenomenal sophomore campaign in which he rushed for 1,953 yards and 22 touchdowns on 300 carries. Against the Rebels, however, he was held to his third lowest rushing total of the season with 108 yards on an average of 4.3 yards a carry, his second lowest of the year.
This season, Fournette had battled injuries, missing three games, and never appeared completely healthy when he did play. Unfortunately for the Rebels, he came back at full strength just in time for this game. The Rebel defense gave up 38 points and 515 yards on the day, with Fournette himself responsible for 284 yards and three touchdowns on just 16 carries.
“He’s a great player who came back, and I know he wanted to do something special, but we weren’t in the right place at times and we needed to be,” Defensive Coordinator Dave Wommack said. “Certainly, even if we aren’t we have a deep safety back there who’s supposed to go over the top and doing those things.”
The Landshark defense also gave up 204 yards passing, but with the exception of one touchdown they didn’t let the Tigers do too much through the air. But with Fournette averaging 17.8 yards per carry LSU didn’t need to do much besides hand it off.
“They have really talented running backs that if they do get a crease they do make you pay,” Head Coach Hugh Freeze said. “And we fit some stuff wrong again, and we missed some tackles again, and then some of the credit goes to them too.”
Wommack was quick to take the blame for the defense’s inability to stop the run.
“Ultimately that’s all the responsibility of the coaches,” Wommack said. “What you see on the field is what we’re coaching, that’s the by-product of it. So I take responsibility there, it’s my defense and we’ve got to have some changes made.”
Ole Miss couldn’t stop LSU from breaking off big plays all game, with Fournette breaking off touchdown runs of 59, 76 and 78 yards and D.J. Chark catching a 40-yard touchdown pass.
“Its very frustrating,” Wommack said. “We go out there and we practice hard every day, and we’re trying to do these things and we make some little mistakes that turn into big mistakes when you’re playing against teams of this caliber. That’s what you play against every week, so there comes a time where I keep telling them, you have to execute on every play, eleven guys have to do what they’re supposed to do on each and every play and fit things like they’re going to fit them.”
This is certainly a setback for an Ole Miss defense that has struggled two weeks in a row, but junior defensive end Marquis Haynes was confident that the Rebels would improve.
“We’re gonna watch film, come in with a better attitude and work on our mistakes and get better,” Haynes said.
