Kirby Smart knows exactly where the danger starts when Georgia heads to Oxford in Week 10: Trinidad Chambliss.
The Ole Miss quarterback is the centerpiece of what the Bulldogs will have to solve Saturday night, and Smart didn’t hold back when describing what makes him so difficult to defend. The Georgia coach pointed first to Chambliss’ feel for the game, then to the precision that comes with it.
“It’s the down-in, down-out decision-making that he’s really elite at, the accuracy that he’s elite at,” Smart told reporters on Monday. “The release, the decision.
He’s just pinpoint. He has an anticipation of windows that’s probably unmatched.
I don’t know if that’s God-given, or the fact that he played a lot of football before he got to Ole Miss. He has played a lot of football, and experience helps.
You throw all that in, and you’ve got a tremendous athlete. He goes forwards, backwards as fast as he goes sideways.
He’s just a great athlete that is a great quarterback.”
That’s the profile Georgia is dealing with: a quarterback who can process quickly, place the ball precisely and move like a problem in every direction. Chambliss already showed what that can look like in last year’s CFP matchup, when Ole Miss beat Georgia behind a 362-yard, 2-touchdown performance. He helped the Rebels erase a 9-point second-half deficit in that game.
This trip to Georgia comes with a lot on the line for Ole Miss. The Rebels are in a spot where they likely need to run the table to feel comfortable about their CFP chances, and this is their final game against a ranked opponent. That makes Saturday a major test for Smart and his staff.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
In Other News...
Ole Miss Heads To Georgia With One Defensive Problem Looming
Ole Miss left Auburn with a 45-15 win that looked comfortable on the scoreboard, but the tape gave the Rebels a few reasons for concern. The defense had trouble getting off the field on third down and had a hard time keeping Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown from extending drives, even in a game that eventually tilted heavily in Ole Miss favor.
Those issues become a lot more pressing with Georgia next on the schedule, because the Bulldogs bring a different kind of test and a quarterback in Gunner Stockton who can punish lapses if the Rebels repeat the same mistakes. For a team with College Football Playoff hopes, the margin for error shrinks fast, and Ole Miss will need a cleaner defensive showing if it wants to leave Athens with its season momentum intact. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Opened The Chris Beard Era With A Statement
The Chris Beard era opened with the kind of pace and pressure Ole Miss has been trying to build around, as the Rebels rolled past Alcorn State in their season opener. Adam Clark set the tone with 17 points, Santiago Trouet added 15 off the bench, and the offense got plenty of easy looks from a defense that was active from the jump.
Ole Miss forced 26 turnovers and turned them into 39 points, a clear sign that the Rebels want to make opponents uncomfortable before they can get settled. The margin also reflected how well Ole Miss controlled the paint and the open floor, two areas that should tell a lot about how quickly Beards imprint is taking hold. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Has A Defensive Problem Better Teams Will Target
Ole Miss left Auburn with a 45-15 win, but the box score did not tell the whole story. The Rebels spent too much of the first half chasing Auburn on third downs, and that has become a familiar issue for a defense that sits near the bottom of the SEC in third-down conversion defense. Against a more disciplined offense, those extra snaps can turn into real trouble.
The second half brought a better response, and that adjustment helped Ole Miss pull away and finish the job. Still, the concern lingers because better teams will notice the same soft spots, especially one as complete as Georgia. For a Rebels defense that has shown it can tighten up after halftime, the bigger question is whether it can do it early enough when the margin gets thinner. [Read more 🡒]