Missouri week got loud on Locked On Ole Miss, and it started with a warning from inside the Rebels’ own locker room: a team that just hung 52 on Vanderbilt is telling you it still hasn’t played a full game. We heard from both sidelines — Ole Miss players promising there’s more in the tank, and Eli Drinkwitz claiming Missouri has a built-in edge against Pete Golding’s defense — plus the transfer nobody is talking about who’s quietly wrecking offenses. Let’s get into it. Hotty Toddy.
The offense says it still hasn’t played a full game
Ole Miss won by 35, scored 52, and essentially took the third quarter off in Nashville — 14 in the first, 28 in the second, then a goose egg in the third. And on Tuesday the players walked in and said they still haven’t put four quarters together. As Steven relayed it, Deuce Alexander’s message was blunt: “I’m not done yet. You haven’t seen anything yet.” That’s the scariest thing Missouri has to deal with, because Trinidad Chambliss’s offense hasn’t finished a game yet this season and it’s still putting up those numbers.
Alexander is up over 100 receiving yards a game — 13th in the country — with five touchdowns, and the confidence is pouring off the tape. Antonio Kite, who has a Missouri connection and grabbed one of the four Vanderbilt takeaways, admitted the defense had only two takeaways in the first four games before it finally started cashing in. And young right tackle Connor Howes gave the most honest answer of the day: the right tackle job isn’t settled, he and Tommy Kinsler IV rotate reps, and whoever had the better week starts. That’s a good problem to have when the guy you’re protecting is Trinidad Chambliss.
Drinkwitz says he knows Pete Golding’s defense
Eli Drinkwitz’s press conference produced the most dangerous line of the week — for Missouri. Asked whether Golding knowing Austin Simmons changes anything, Drinkwitz flipped it: the edge, he argued, is that Missouri “kind of knows what they do,” with former Rebel Chris Graves Jr. able to tell them what Golding’s base defense is. Here’s the problem, as Steven laid it out — that scouting report is a former player’s memory of a system Ole Miss doesn’t even run the same way anymore, and Golding spent Monday talking about making the same things look different and different things look the same. The whole point is to make Austin Simmons think. A line that sounds smart on Tuesday can get you beat on Saturday.
Give Drinkwitz his due — 51-30 at Missouri, an SEC Coach of the Year, a Cotton Bowl win over Ohio State — and he was complimentary, comparing Chambliss’s quick release and anticipation to Mizzou’s own Cody Schrader story. But the tell was this: Missouri needs to play its “most complete game to even be in the game,” and his team “can’t sit in a bunker for the first three quarters.” That’s a coach telling you he can’t win this one slowly.
Blake Purchase is quietly having a monster year
Here’s Steven’s favorite under-the-radar story: the best transfer Pete Golding brought in isn’t on a national watch list. Blake Purchase leads Ole Miss in sacks (3.5) and tackles for loss (6.5) — nearly four of every ten of the defense’s nine sacks belong to him — and he sits sixth in the SEC in TFL per game. On3 had him ranked as just the 43rd edge in the transfer portal out of Oregon, where two first-round-caliber ends held him to a pair of starts over three years. He has already matched his Oregon production in five games at Ole Miss.
Why is nobody saying his name? Because of who he lines up next to — Will Echols has the draft stock, and Suntarine Perkins has the career numbers and the Chucky Mullins Courage Award. Purchase is the guy you notice on the replay. Against a Missouri team that protects the ball — Simmons has thrown one interception on the year, and that was on a tip — getting after the quarterback is everything, and Purchase is the one forcing fumbles. Steven’s take: Saturday is the day the rest of the SEC finds out what he’s doing.
The keys to Saturday
Steven’s blueprint is straightforward: Ole Miss has to stop the run early. Missouri wants to pound it with Jamal Roberts — the league leader in yards after contact — shorten the game, and keep Chambliss on the sideline, the way Florida tried to in Gainesville. Make the Tigers one-dimensional in the first half, force Austin Simmons to throw it a bunch, and the fourth quarter opens up for the Ole Miss offense. On the other side it comes down to Missouri’s pass defense — statistically stout against the throw — versus Chambliss and a receiver room of Traylon Ray, Horatio Fields, Caleb Odom, Luke Hasz and a surging Deuce Alexander, with Kewan Lacy and the RPO game keeping everyone honest.
The market sees a close one: Vegas has the Rebels as a 6.5-point favorite. Steven’s read is that the number undersells a team that keeps leaving a quarter on the table — but only if Ole Miss plays clean, because Simmons and company will punish mistakes.
Also on the show
Ole Miss legend Bill Flowers joined Steven for a guest episode, and the standout was his theory on why the Vanderbilt team looked so different. As Flowers heard it, Golding sat the defense down and told them every snap is being evaluated and they’re playing for their value come January — “you’re going to tell us how much you’re worth by how well you play” was the gist — and the message landed in a 42-3 road beatdown. Flowers also loved the offense finally passing to set up the run under John David Baker, and on Purchase he put it simply: you plug in a no-name who fits and “it just absolutely increases the value of your defense.” His bottom line on Saturday matched Steven’s — play clean, pressure Simmons, and Ole Miss walks away with it.
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