Why Ah do decleah, Johnny Reb is in the house….

….fayetch him sahm ahsed tea…..

In leadup to the this week’s LSU-Ole Miss game in Baton Rouge, I am exchanging some questions with Juco All-American from from the Ole Miss blog Red Solo Cup.   My answers to his questions will be up over there so go check it out.

1) How happy are you that the Rebels are no longer coached by the Ogre?  And how happy are you that it’s Houston Nutt that took his place, and how do you think he is doing?
It’s difficult to express how happy we are to have a coach that can actually teach technique. I have a strong mutual friend with a prominent assistant coach on our team. That coach was explaining to my friend what “Ogre,” as you so kindly referred to him, left for the program in terms of coaching. He said that O left a lot of high school coaches and players who had never been taught technique. How we managed to keep it close against y’all two years ago absolutely baffles me.
On the other hand, we have seen our players play better and better each week under HDN. They’re not out of position as often anymore, and they’re playing relatively heady football. I can’t believe it. OUR players are playing like they’ve played football before. Insane. I was relatively upset when we hired Nutt, but I’m happily eating plates and plates of crow now. There are coaches in America that I would rather have than Houston Nutt, but there aren’t many.

2) You guys have had an up and down year: lost to Vanderbilt, Wake and South Carolina, and a win over Florida.  Why is that, and what needs to happen to change that?
I think that the team was adjusting to coaching for the first half of the season. They didn’t know how to play with a lead/play to win, etc. The win against Florida, I’ll admit, was mostly a fluke. 29 out of 30 times we play that game, we lose. In that same way, the loss to Vanderbilt was a fluke. I want to meet a team that can turn the ball over seven times in a game and win that game against a bowl-bound opponent.
The loss to Wake was so early in the season that our team didn’t realize they are good. They were playing like losers even though Jevan had his best game since Texas High School. Our pass defense, as you’ll see, is absolutely pourous, but they were significantly worse at the time, and Riley Skinner just picked us apart.
We lost to South Carolina because they are a better team than we are, or at least they were on that day. 

3) Having said that, you guys are on a little bit of a roll coming into Baton Rouge.  What has been the biggest reason for this recent success?
I hate to harp on coaching, so I won’t. I think that a big contributing factor is the lack of turnovers. Our players are holding onto the ball better, not fumbling. Jevan’s not throwinig interceptions. In our last three games (wins over Auburn, Arkansas, and UL-Monroe) we have one total turnover. Over that same timespan, we have six takeaways. With that ratio, you’re going to win games. I think that Jevan is starting to realize that he doesn’t have to win games on his own. If there’s no throw to be made, he’s not throwing into coverage. His completion percentage isn’t so hot, but who cares? He throws the ball where only his receivers can get to it. 

4) Honestly, Houston Nutt is the scariest coach in the nation as far
as I am concerned.  His teams never seem to match up to LSU
talent-wise, but they always play LSU tough and get big wins, like
last year and 2002.  He has a history of getting huge games out of
lesser known players, like Peyton Hillis last year, or DeCori
Birmingham in 2002.  What little-known (i.e. not Jevan Snead) player
should I be watching out for and why?
I’ll do this for two players, one offensive and one defensive.
First, the defense. Everyone was talking about Greg Hardy at DE and Peria Jerry at DT before the season started. They’re both potential first round picks. We know this. However, there is another defensive end who is really coming into his own this season. Louisiana’s own Kentrell Lockett. Lockett has 27 tackles on the season from the defensive end position. 7.5 of those are TFLs. He also has recovered two fumbles and blocked the extra point that won the game against Florida. I don’t have his statistics over these past three games (because ESPN is lazy with defense and the school’s stats aren’t sortable) but he has been monumental in our last three wins, always seeming to be in the backfield disrupting plays. He will play on Sundays.
The offensive player I’m going to name may be a little bit cheap, but it’s just going to have to do. Our starting halfback, Cordera Eason has really come into his own during the past four games. I had written the junior off early in the season when the sexy-pick freshmen Brandon Bolden and Enrique Davis were getting more snaps than him. It appears that Eason worked harder when he saw the competition coming, and he has gotten the bulk of the carries over our last three games (all wins) averaging over 100 yards and six yards per carry over that span. Eason has become the back we all hoped he would be when Orgeron signed the four star in 2005. If there’s anyone other than Jevan and our highly touted receivers (who are three physical freaks) it’s Eason.

5) Your turn: Prediction, and how will it happen?
Well, you had to expect I would pick Ole Miss to “upset” the tigers, which I will. Still, I think it’s going to be very close, and it probably depends on which Jarrett Lee shows up. If you turn the ball over more than once against us, I think we’ll run away with it, winning by 14. When it comes down to it though, our pass defense is just not good enough (since Orgeron signed a whopping one corner during his tenure at Ole Miss). I think the rebels win a close one by four. It will come down to the wire, but I would guess Lee will fold at the end of the game allowing us to ice the victory with a field goal to go up by four.