Early Sunday morning, a tired and frustrated Dave Wommack stood at the bottom level of Tiger Stadium just outside of the visitors’ locker room. For the second week in a row, he was tasked with answering questions about his young and struggling defense.
Hours earlier, LSU tailback Leonard Fournette used the Ole Miss defense as a springboard to make a splash in his return from an ankle injury. The junior rushed 16 times for 284 yards and three touchdowns. He repeatedly gashed the Rebels up front and broke runs of 59, 76 and 78 yards.
It’s been a trying year for Wommack, who coached the best defense in college football just two seasons ago. He talked about the mix of players he has, both young and old, and the hard lessons they’ve had to learn together.
“Sometimes you go through these things for a reason,” Wommack said. “I don’t know what it is right now. It may be that it makes this team and group of players better down the road, but it’s been extremely tough. We’ve gone through some awfully difficult growing pains. Still are.”
If you look around, Wommack doesn’t have the same weapons he did in seasons past. Guys like Robert Nkemdiche, Senquez Golson, Channing Ward, Cody Prewitt and C.J. Johnson are no longer there. He’s essentially working with an entirely new secondary and desperately trying to find an answer at linebacker.
It’s showing, too. The Rebels are last in the SEC in rushing defense, No. 10 in passing and No. 13 in total defense. The group is giving up 268 yards per game on the ground. Wommack has talked repeatedly about mental mistakes and eyes being in the wrong place. It makes sense, too, because there have been flashes of good, like the opening two possessions in Baton Rouge, in which the Rebels got stops on each, or the 35 yards it held Fournette to on his last nine carries. But those mental mistakes that Wommack has talked about are what turn into the 59, 76 and 78 chunks of yardage.
“We can’t afford to make some of the mistakes that we are making,” Hugh Freeze said. “Whether it’s defensively on a blown coverage, or whether it is a turnover because it’s a bad decision. We can’t afford to do those things or a bad call by a coach.”
It’s been hard, and Wommack is trying to make his group gel. They’ve taken their lumps and tried to adjust. It made some coaching tweaks at linebacker as well as personnel changes. Through it all, he still believes the talent is there.
“I believe in the players. I love those guys. I am never going to talk bad about the players. I want them to understand that it’s like life. If you don’t make changes for the better, if you’re selfish and more concerned about this and that than you are winning football games and coming together as a group … we’ve got to do more of that,” Wommack said. “We need more help at times in there with some guys that are playing. We’ve got a mix of young guys and a mix of old guys. We need to get closer as a defense, and we need to execute better.”
The defense has had to learn fast, and the schedule only sped up the demand. The Rebels opened the season with Florida State and Alabama, two of the first three weeks before its first true road tests came against LSU and Arkansas. Its only breather and opportunity to learn without being severely punished by mistakes came against a Wofford team that runs the triple option, and Memphis, who is 5-2 with its only other loss coming to 24th-ranked Navy.
With Wofford running such an unconventional scheme, Wommack hasn’t had a game in which he can play a lot of guys in different plays and give them some confidence. The likes of Dalvin Cook, Bo Scarbrough, Nick Chubb and Leonard Fournette have only amplified the growing pains. Not to mention it faces an Auburn offense that ran for 543 yards against Arkansas last week. The hits will continue to come, and Ole Miss will have to figure out how to absorb them better.
“Ultimately, that’s our responsibility as coaches. What you see on the field is what we are coaching, because that’s our product that we sell” Wommack said. “I take responsibility. It’s my defense. We have got to have some changes made.”
