Ole Miss is heading to Norman with another key piece missing, and this one hurts up front.
Head coach Pete Golding said Monday that star running back Kewan Lacy will miss his third straight game when the Rebels face Oklahoma on Saturday. It will be Lacy’s fourth missed game of the season.
The injury list doesn’t stop there. Golding also said standout right guard Patrick Kutas won’t be available for the Week 11 matchup, though first-year head coach added that Deuce Alexander was nicked up against Georgia and is not expected to miss time.
“Not (any) season-ending (injuries). Kutas got banged up pretty good, so we will not have Patrick this week,” Golding explained.
“There will be some moving parts to that and looking at some guys bumping inside and we’ve been rotating some guys anyway. But he’s the only one (besides Kewan Lacy) that we know for sure won’t be available on Saturday.”
Kutas was injured in the first half of Ole Miss’ 35-point loss to Georgia after getting rolled up on in a pile of players during a run play. He needed help walking off the field and later was seen pedaling on the exercise bike along the Rebels’ sideline, but he never returned.
The loss is especially notable because Kutas has been one of Ole Miss’ most productive linemen. The Southeastern Conference named him SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week twice in a three-week span for his work against Missouri and Auburn.
His absence comes at a rough time for an offense about to see one of the nation’s better defensive fronts. Oklahoma is allowing 122.7 rushing yards per game, which ranks 36th in the country, and the Sooners have piled up 26 sacks already this season.
Ole Miss already had issues protecting Trinidad Chambliss and getting the run game settled against Georgia. ESPN Insights said Chambliss was pressured on 33 percent of his dropbacks, a season high, and he finished 2-of-8 for 13 yards and an interception while taking four sacks.
“We just couldn’t get things going. Couldn’t get drives going,” Chambliss said of the Rebels’ offensive struggles.
“They brought a lot of pressure, they got home on four sacks. We just couldn’t get going.
I mean, they just brought a lot at us, so it’s tough to kind of get into a flow of that when you’re getting pressured and extending plays - or trying to at least.”
Golding said Oklahoma is likely to try to attack in a similar way.
The Rebels are also trying to shake off the disappointment of their third loss and get back on track.
“Obviously there’s a feeling of disappointment, regardless of how many it is,” Golding said of the team mood following its third loss. “They put a lot into this and they want to put their focus on their preparation and playing well - and we didn’t play well.
We didn’t coach well, we didn’t play well and that’s the outcome you’re going to get when you do that. But I think they did a really good job last night of focusing on the why and both from a coaching standpoint and a playing standpoint.
We just gotta focus on what we can control and the bottom line - we’re not executing the way we need to and there’s times from a (play) calling standpoint that we need to put them in better positions.”
Kickoff in Norman is set for 3:15 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
In Other News...
Ole Miss Fans Just Saw Pete Goldings Biggest Problem Again
The Georgia game offered another harsh reminder of why Ole Miss has spent so much of this season trying to patch up its defense on the fly. In a 42-7 loss, the Rebels gave up 481 total yards and were especially vulnerable on the ground, where Georgia piled up 295 rushing yards and controlled the game from start to finish.
Pete Goldings unit has been fighting this issue all season, and the numbers only sharpen the concern. Ole Miss is now allowing 165.1 rushing yards per game after this matchup, a troubling trend for a defense that has struggled to hold up against physical run games and has not found a consistent answer yet. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Just Got A Brutal Reality Check After Georgia Loss
Cole Cubelics weekly SEC breakdown offered a blunt reminder of where Ole Miss stands after the loss to Georgia, with the Rebels landing among the weekends most closely watched teams in a slate that also featured Alabamas road win at LSU, Texas handling Missouri and Tennessee rolling past Kentucky. His analysis dug into the details of how those games were decided, from offensive execution to defensive adjustments, and Ole Miss was part of the conversation for all the wrong reasons.
For a Rebels team trying to measure itself against the leagues elite, the Georgia game became more than just another setback. Cubelics observations pointed to the kind of control the Bulldogs were able to exert on both sides of the ball, and that leaves Ole Miss with a clear standard to chase as the season moves on. The bigger question now is how the Rebels respond when the margin for error shrinks and the competition keeps getting tougher. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Playoff Hopes Now Hinge On One Uncomfortable Debate
Ole Miss still has enough on the rsum to make people look twice, especially with wins over LSU and Missouri, but the margin for error has all but vanished after a pair of damaging losses. The latest setback against Georgia only sharpened the conversation around where the Rebels really stand, because the committee is no longer looking at signature wins alone. It is also looking hard at the ugly parts, and those have become impossible to ignore.
The schedule does offer a chance to steady things, with Oklahoma, Wofford and Mississippi State still ahead. But for the Rebels, the bigger issue is no longer simply winning out, it is whether the playoff conversation can survive the kind of debate that comes with multiple poor losses on the ledger. At this point, Ole Miss can keep playing its way forward, but it cannot fully control how the rest of the field and the committee choose to weigh what has already happened. [Read more 🡒]