Missouri week is here, and if you caught Wednesday’s show you heard a theme the Rebels cannot stop repeating: they just hung 52 on Vanderbilt and they still do not think they have played a full game. Today’s Locked On Ole Miss took you to both sidelines — Deuce Alexander and the offense swearing there is another gear, Eli Drinkwitz claiming Missouri has a book on Pete Golding’s defense — and then made the case for the one Rebel having a monster year that nobody is talking about. Here is what mattered. Hotty Toddy.
52 points — and the Rebels still say they have not played a full game
Ole Miss just won by 35 and then walked into Tuesday telling anyone who would listen that they have not finished a game yet. Look at the Vanderbilt box score and it is hard to argue with them: 14 in the first quarter, 28 in the second, a 42-3 halftime lead — and then a zero in the third. That is 52 points with essentially a quarter taken off, and it is the scariest thing Missouri has to deal with this Saturday, because Trinidad Chambliss and this offense have not put four clean quarters together yet this season.
Deuce Alexander is the proof. He is up to 100.6 receiving yards a game — 13th in the entire country — with five touchdowns, including a 39-yard strike through the middle of the Vandy defense, and he made it clear he is not done. Antonio Kite, who has his own Missouri ties, was honest that the defense had just two takeaways through four games before forcing four against Vanderbilt. And young right tackle Connor Howes keeps getting thrown into the fire, splitting reps with Tommy Kinsler and even sliding to left tackle with the backups — the kind of quiet, you-do-not-notice-him play an offensive line loves. The Saturday matchup is simple: Missouri comes in 91st nationally against the pass, which puts it on Chambliss, Deuce, Traylon Ray, Horatio Fields, Caleb Odom and Luke Hasz to stretch that secondary and open up Kewan Lacy and the run game.
Eli Drinkwitz says he knows Pete Golding’s defense
Drinkwitz’s press conference handed Missouri its most dangerous idea of the week: that the Tigers hold an edge because they know what Golding’s defense does. His logic is that Austin Simmons and Caden Lee went against Golding for three years, and that Chris Graves Jr. — a former Rebel whom Golding recruited and coached — can tell them what the base defense really is. The trouble is that the scouting report amounts to a former Rebel’s memory of a system Ole Miss does not run the same way anymore. As Golding said Monday, his whole week is about making the same things look different and different things look the same. That is built to make a quarterback think, which is exactly the trap a “we know what they do” plan can walk into.
None of this makes Drinkwitz an amateur. He is 51-30 at Missouri, the 2023 SEC Coach of the Year, with a Cotton Bowl win over Ohio State on the résumé, and the Tigers are 5-1 with their only loss a 31-21 game at Mississippi State. He was complimentary, too, calling Chambliss a quick-release passer who sees the field and throws with anticipation, even reaching for a Cody Schrader comparison. But the tell was his own line that Missouri needs its most complete game just to be in this one, and that his team cannot sit in a bunker for three quarters. That is a coach telling you he cannot win this slowly.
Blake Purchase is quietly having a monster year
Here is the one that earned the whole third segment. “I think the best transfer that Pete Golding brought in this offseason isn’t on a national watch list, and you won’t hear his name in a pregame show.” That is Blake Purchase, and the numbers are loud even if nobody is saying them: he leads Ole Miss in sacks (3.5) and tackles for loss (6.5), which means nearly four of the defense’s nine sacks belong to one edge rusher. He is also among the team leaders with 21 total tackles and sits sixth in the SEC in tackles for loss per game.
What makes it a story is where he came from. Purchase spent three years at Oregon buried behind two first-round edge talents — 35 games, two starts — and On3 had him as a three-star, the 43rd edge in the transfer portal. He has already matched his Oregon production in five games at Ole Miss, with a tackle for loss in four of five and a two-sack, three-TFL, forced-fumble day at Vanderbilt that Suntarine Perkins scooped and scored to make it 35-3. He gets overshadowed by Will Echoles’ draft stock and Perkins’ Chucky Mullins Courage Award, but against a Missouri team that does not give the ball away — Austin Simmons has thrown just one interception, on a tipped pass — getting into the backfield early against Jamal Roberts is the whole game. That is Purchase’s game.
Also on the show
Ole Miss legend Bill Flowers stopped by to break down the 42-3 win at Vanderbilt and look ahead to Missouri. He loved the more aggressive offense — passing to set up the run with Kewan Lacy back in the backfield — and he backed the Blake Purchase hype: “you realize this person could be a great fit for your team and you just plug them in, and it just absolutely increases the value of your defense.” His read on the week matched the show’s: with the way the SEC is built right now, a road blowout like that says something real about this team’s character.
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