Friday’s show was about one game and one game only: Ole Miss on the road at Texas, and the case for why the Rebels could walk into Darrell K Royal Stadium and win it. I built the whole thing straight off the game notes — the floor-versus-ceiling math, the three keys that decide it, the names I’m watching, and what the market was telling us going into the weekend. Here’s the recap of everything we hit. Hotty Toddy.
Ole Miss wins because its floor is higher than Texas’s ceiling
That was the whole thesis, and I led with it: the worst offensive day this Ole Miss team has had all year is still better than the best day Texas has had against a Power 4 opponent. Go game-by-game in the Ole Miss notes — 41, 41, 32, 28, 52, 31. That’s 37.5 points a game, and the floor is 28, which came in the one loss at Florida. Now look at Texas against Power 4 teams: 24 on Ohio State, 20 at Tennessee, 24 against Oklahoma, 24 against Florida. The Longhorns have not cracked 25 on a Power 4 defense all season. Ole Miss has not been held under 28 by anybody.
The part that should scare Texas is the run game, because it’s climbing every week — 63 yards on LSU, 128 at Florida, 196 at Vanderbilt, 257 on Missouri. That’s 453 rushing yards over the last two games on 73 carries, better than six a pop, and it’s running into a Texas front that’s about to be short-handed. Ole Miss is averaging 444 yards of total offense against a schedule full of ranked teams; Texas sits around 313 against Power 4 defenses. And the Rebel defense is peaking too — 20 points allowed total over the Vanderbilt and Missouri games, with a Missouri offense that walked in near 36 a game and left with a field goal and 39 rushing yards.
The Colin Simmons question changes how you play them
I’m not going to pretend this one’s small. Colin Simmons being ruled doubtful on Wednesday — and his backup with him — is a massive swing. He’s a game-wrecker: 10.5 of Texas’s 18 sacks and 16.5 tackles for loss are his. Losing him, in my opinion, is the equivalent of Ole Miss losing Trinidad Chambliss on offense. That’s how much he’s worth.
Here’s why it matters to the game plan, though, and not just the stat sheet. With Simmons out there, you have to keep a tight end in to protect or chip with a back on every snap. Without him, you can run your protections the way you normally do and let Chambliss be the version of himself that just works inside the system instead of improvising to survive. Texas still has athletes and a blitz package coming — if you don’t pressure Chambliss right now it’s suicide — but a third-teamer on the edge asks very different questions than Simmons does.
Three keys, and the names who swing them
Key one is tempo. Ole Miss snaps it every 23.5 seconds, eighth-fastest in the country, and in a loud building that’s how you take 100,000 people out of it — snap it before the crowd gets set and keep a short-handed Texas front on the field. Key two is getting Texas into third-and-long, because that offense has gone 8-for-36 on third down over its last three games. Win first and second down and it gets uncomfortable in a hurry. Key three is Kewan Lacy in the red zone: since the start of last season he’s got 29 rushing touchdowns, second in the country among running backs, and Ole Miss has scored on every red zone trip this year. He’s also from Lancaster, Texas, so don’t think this one isn’t circled.
For names I’m watching beyond those two: Will Echoles is the matchup I’d point to against a Texas interior that’s struggled — the notes call him a disruptive force, and last year that meant 68 tackles, 11.5 for loss and five sacks. Suntarine Perkins keeps climbing the school charts with 20 career sacks and 35 tackles for loss. And watch Caleb Cunningham, who caught the first touchdown of his career against Missouri and grades out as the best Rebel receiver on fewer than half the snaps — if Texas sells out to stop Lacy, he’s the one who makes them pay down the field.
Reading the market
The show reads the market; it doesn’t tell you who to bet on. As of Thursday morning, FanDuel had Texas laying 3.5 and a total of 54.5, and the thing that jumps out is how stuck the line is. On Sunday morning, before the Simmons news, it was Texas -3.5 with a 55.5 total. Simmons and his backup then got ruled doubtful, and the spread didn’t move — the price on the Ole Miss side just got a little more expensive and the total dropped a point. FanDuel showed something like 88% of the money and 86% of the bets on Ole Miss against the spread, and when that much comes in on one side and the number holds, the book is telling you it’s comfortable. The 3.5 itself is Vegas saying touchdown Texas minus a field goal plus the hook.
Do the math and the market is penciling in something like Texas 29, Ole Miss 25, with the prediction market giving the Rebels right around 42% to win outright. I got to my own number a different way — through the offensive line continuity that’s kept the sacks-allowed under one a game, through the middle-eight stretch where Texas has faded all year, and through the simple fact that I don’t see the Longhorns reaching the 30s without Simmons and I don’t see Ole Miss getting held under 30. My score: Ole Miss 31, Texas 27.
Also on the show
I also sat down with NFL veteran and former Rebel Todd Wade to dig into why the run game finally took off against Missouri. His read was that it came back to the basics up front — better leverage, more movement at the point of attack, and guys finishing blocks. “They’re playing more physical up front, and they have a little bit more confidence about themselves,” Wade said, crediting the open week after Florida for letting the group reset. For an offense that had been fine in pass protection all year, the run blocking was the last piece — and against Missouri it clicked.
Join the Everydayers on Discord: https://discord.gg/KF3dtcQJhC