For three weeks the story of this Ole Miss team was depth. Against LSU, Pete Golding stopped using it.
The Rebels ran 77 offensive snaps and played 72 on defense in Saturday night’s 32-24 win over No. 7 LSU, in front of a stadium-record 70,033 at Vaught-Hemingway. Both numbers are up from Charlotte. Everything else went the other way.
Twenty-nine players were charted on offense against Charlotte. Against LSU it was 21. Thirty-two were charted on defense. Against LSU it was 23. Thirteen defensive linemen played in the home opener and nobody cracked 24 snaps; on Saturday seven defensive linemen and three edges covered the entire game, and Will Echoles alone played 54.
That is what a rotation looks like when it stops being a plan and starts being a depth chart. Here is the whole thing, with the Charlotte share alongside it.
Offense
Quarterback
Trinidad Chambliss played all 77 snaps and dropped back 55 times. Against Charlotte he dropped back 29. He graded 90.2 as a passer, the best mark on the offense for the second straight week, and finished 33-of-48 for 363 yards with two touchdowns, an interception, and the 14-yard run that won the game.
Deuce Knight played one snap. A week after 15 snaps and a 91.9 grade in mop-up, the backup quarterback was on the field for a single play in the biggest home game in years. That is not a knock on Knight. It is the clearest possible statement of what this game was.
Running back
| Player | Snaps | Share | vs. Charlotte | Pass block | PFF offense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kewan Lacy | 43 | 56% | 62% | 23.6 | 64.4 |
| JT Lindsey | 34 | 44% | 5% | 13.7 | 67.0 |
Two backs. That is the room now.
JT Lindsey went from three snaps against Charlotte to 34 against LSU — the single biggest jump on the roster — and Makhi Frazier, who took 17 a week ago, did not play. Lacy’s share came down and he carried nine times for 43 yards, his 12th straight game with a rushing touchdown.
The number to sit with is the pass-blocking column. Lacy graded 23.6 on eight pass-blocking snaps. Lindsey graded 13.7 on six. Ole Miss asked its backs to protect 14 times and got almost nothing, which is part of why Chambliss threw 48 times from a pocket that was frequently not there.
Wide receiver
| Player | Snaps | Share | vs. Charlotte | PFF receiving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deuce Alexander | 70 | 91% | 48% | 61.1 |
| Horatio Fields | 56 | 73% | 50% | 59.3 |
| Traylon Ray | 33 | 43% | 27% | 74.3 |
| Johntay Cook II | 24 | 31% | 27% | 60.1 |
| Samari Reed | 3 | 4% | 25% | 58.8 |
| Caleb Cunningham | 0 | — | 32% | — |
Five receivers played. Nine played against Charlotte.
Traylon Ray is the efficiency story of the night. He played 33 snaps — fewer than half the game, third in the room — ran 26 routes, and led Ole Miss with seven catches for 115 yards and a touchdown. Deuce Alexander played 70 snaps and 52 routes to produce seven catches for 60. Ray did more damage on roughly half the work.
And then the line everybody is going to argue about. Caleb Cunningham did not play a snap.
Eight days ago he caught six passes for 65 yards against Charlotte and Golding said at the podium, unprompted, “I think he could be a big piece of the offense.” On Saturday he was not on the field for a single play. Nothing in a snap-count report says why a player is not in it, and this one needs an answer before Florida.
Tight end
| Player | Snaps | Share | vs. Charlotte | Run block | PFF offense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caleb Odom | 52 | 68% | 0% | 80.5 | 75.6 |
| Luke Hasz | 47 | 61% | 58% | 56.2 | 51.3 |
| Michael Smith | 13 | 17% | 42% | 58.3 | 81.5 |
| Hayden Bradley | 5 | 6% | 30% | 43.6 | 47.4 |
Caleb Odom came back from zero snaps and immediately took the room. Fifty-two snaps, 38 of them as a receiver, an 80.5 run-blocking grade that led the entire offense, and a 75.6 overall that trailed only Chambliss among players who logged real volume.
Luke Hasz played 47 and graded 51.3. A week ago Hasz was the unquestioned TE1 and Odom was a health question. The snap counts say that is already a two-man room with Odom in front on merit, and Michael Smith’s 81.5 on 13 snaps says the third one can still play.
Offensive line
| Player | Snaps | Share | Pass-block snaps | Pass block | Run block |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terez Davis | 77 | 100% | 55 | 80.1 | 65.8 |
| Patrick Kutas | 77 | 100% | 55 | 65.8 | 62.0 |
| Brycen Sanders | 77 | 100% | 55 | 63.7 | 60.0 |
| Delano Townsend | 77 | 100% | 55 | 29.3 | 59.4 |
| Connor Howes | 50 | 65% | 37 | 54.0 | 65.8 |
| Tommy Kinsler IV | 27 | 35% | 18 | 44.1 | 56.9 |
| Cooper Johnson | 2 | 3% | 0 | — | 59.8 |
Four linemen never came off: Terez Davis, Patrick Kutas, Brycen Sanders and Delano Townsend all played every one of the 77 snaps. The right tackle spot split again — Connor Howes 50, Tommy Kinsler IV 27 in his first action since the opener — which retires the idea, floated here last week, that the job had quietly been settled. It had not. Kinsler was hurt, and now the two of them are sharing it.
The protection grades are ugly and they are the reason this game was close. Townsend graded 29.3 in pass protection across 55 snaps — the worst mark by any Ole Miss player at any position this season. Kinsler was 44.1, Howes 54.0. Only Davis, at 80.1, held up the way this line did in the first two weeks.
One oddity worth noting: Jamarious Brown, a defensive tackle, took two snaps at fullback. Golding found two goal-line-flavored plays for a 300-pounder and the report tagged him on both sides of the ball.
Defense
Defensive line and edge
| Player | Snaps | Share | vs. Charlotte | Pressures | Pass rush | PFF defense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Will Echoles | 54 | 75% | 37% | 7 | 90.9 | 90.8 |
| Blake Purchase | 47 | 65% | 32% | 4 | 68.0 | 71.1 |
| Kam Franklin | 44 | 61% | 37% | 6 | 61.2 | 73.9 |
| Suntarine Perkins | 42 | 58% | 32% | 1 | 51.9 | 73.1 |
| Michai Boireau | 27 | 38% | 32% | 0 | 56.8 | 63.5 |
| Jamarious Brown | 25 | 35% | 28% | 2 | 62.6 | 64.3 |
| Jehiem Oatis | 23 | 32% | 26% | 1 | 72.4 | 72.6 |
| Jonathan Maldonado | 16 | 22% | 37% | 0 | 62.1 | 71.4 |
| Jordan Renaud | 13 | 18% | 31% | 0 | 58.4 | 66.5 |
| Talib Graham | 1 | 1% | 12% | 0 | — | 60.3 |
Will Echoles played the best game any Ole Miss defender has played this season. Fifty-four snaps, 32 of them rushing the passer, seven pressures including a sack, a 90.9 pass-rush grade and a 90.8 overall. Both are the highest single-game marks on this defense in 2026. Against Charlotte he played 24 snaps. Against LSU he essentially did not leave.
Kam Franklin added six pressures. Blake Purchase had four and a sack. As a group the front generated 29 pressures and three sacks, and the last of them forced the throw Jaylon Braxton intercepted to end the game.
Six players who took defensive-line snaps against Charlotte — Landon Barnes, Andrew Maddox, Jayden Curtis, Kamron Beavers, Carmelow Reed and Jamarion Owens — did not play at all. The nine-deep and thirteen-deep rotations of the first two weeks were a September luxury. This is the real one.
Linebacker
Keaton Thomas led the group at 56 snaps, up from 32, with Luke Ferrelli at 46 and Tahj Butler at 43. Jarcoby Hopson did not play.
Thomas was sent after the quarterback ten times and produced four pressures and a sack — easily his most aggressive usage of the season. Butler graded 80.9 against the run and 82.5 in tackling, the best tackling grade on the defense. Ferrelli, who led the front seven in snaps a week ago, is now third in the room and graded 58.9.
Secondary
| Player | Snaps | Share | vs. Charlotte | Tgt-Rec-Yds | Coverage | PFF defense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edwin Joseph | 72 | 100% | 48% | 3-2-10 | 58.2 | 61.3 |
| Sharif Denson | 70 | 97% | 0% | 7-5-29 | 58.3 | 63.4 |
| Joenel Aguero | 65 | 90% | 43% | 3-3-47 | 64.4 | 59.4 |
| Jaylon Braxton | 61 | 85% | 75% | 5-2-35 | 47.8 | 52.3 |
| Antonio Kite | 54 | 75% | 0% | 1-0-0 | 62.6 | 65.6 |
| Ladarian Clardy | 16 | 22% | 49% | — | 64.0 | 64.6 |
| Nick Cull | 9 | 12% | 48% | 1-1-9 | 43.8 | 44.8 |
| Andy Jaffe | 6 | 8% | 31% | — | 61.0 | 68.5 |
| Craig Tutt | 1 | 1% | — | — | — | 60.0 |
| Anthony Robinson III | 1 | 1% | 38% | — | — | 45.8 |
| Jalyn Crawford | 0 | — | 66% | — | — | — |
Golding said after Charlotte that he could not find five defensive backs who did their jobs. He got two of them back and cut the room in half.
Sharif Denson played 70 snaps and Antonio Kite played 54 in their first action of the season. Kite was targeted once and gave up nothing. Denson was the most-targeted Rebel on the field, seven times, and allowed five catches for 29 yards — under six yards a reception, which is a coverage day you take.
And Jalyn Crawford, who started at corner and played 43 snaps against Charlotte, did not play. With Kite back, Ole Miss used exactly two corners all night. That is the second unexplained zero in this report.
The grades underneath are less comfortable than the result. Jaylon Braxton graded 52.3 with a 47.8 in coverage — a month after posting the best defensive grade on the team against Charlotte — and still made the interception that ended the game. Joenel Aguero missed four tackles, a 44.4 percent miss rate, graded 27.2 in tackling and allowed all three balls thrown at him for 47 yards. The team missed 14 tackles in total.
LSU still ran for 172 yards and scored 21 unanswered across the third quarter and the start of the fourth. The snap counts and the tackling grades explain how.
The projected chart, based on usage
OFFENSE
- QB — Chambliss, and only Chambliss
- RB — Lacy and Lindsey, a true two-man room
- WR — Alexander, Fields, Ray; Cook II fourth
- TE — Odom, then Hasz, with Smith third
- LT — Davis · LG — Townsend · C — Sanders · RG — Kutas · RT — Howes and Kinsler, split
DEFENSE
- DL — Echoles and Franklin, with Boireau, Brown and Oatis rotating; Maldonado and Renaud situational
- EDGE — Purchase and Perkins
- LB — Thomas, Ferrelli, Butler
- CB — Braxton and Kite, with nobody third
- S — Joseph, Denson, Aguero
What it actually tells us
The depth was never the plan for this kind of game. Ten men played the defensive front. Two corners played every meaningful snap. Five receivers dressed into the rotation. Everything Ole Miss showed in September about rolling bodies was true and also irrelevant on Saturday, which is the normal and correct way for a staff to behave in a top-ten game.
They won it through the air on purpose. Fifty-five dropbacks against 22 run snaps, 363 passing yards against 63 rushing. Against a Blake Baker defense built to blow up a run game, Ole Miss did what it did to Penn State in the Peach Bowl — took the quick game, threw it 48 times, and let the quarterback be the best player on the field.
The protection is now the problem. A 29.3 pass-block grade from a lineman who played every snap, two running backs under 25, a right tackle spot still splitting. Chambliss survived it. Florida’s front will ask the same question in six days.
And two names that mattered a week ago played zero snaps. Caleb Cunningham and Jalyn Crawford. One of them was called a big piece of the offense from the podium eight days ago; the other started at cornerback. Neither absence is explained by anything in this report.
Ole Miss is 3-0, 1-0 in the SEC, and travels to Florida on Saturday at 2:30 CT. The Rebels still have not released a depth chart.
Snap counts and grades via Pro Football Focus; team and individual totals via Ole Miss Athletics. Photo: Caleb Odom stiff-arms LSU safety Tamarcus Cooley, September 19, 2026, at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Credit: The Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.
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