Three days out from Auburn, Wednesday’s Locked On Ole Miss was built straight off the three Rebel press conferences — Blake Purchase, Caleb Odom and Delano Townsend — and the message coming out of Oxford was remarkably consistent: the loss at Texas wasn’t a talent problem, it was a handful of fixable snaps, and this team still has everything in front of it. Here’s what mattered most from the show. Hotty Toddy.
The Texas loss came down to two angles, not a talent gap
Blake Purchase went back and watched the Texas film and came out with a number, not a feeling: Texas piled up 100-plus rushing yards on just two carries in the fourth quarter. That lines up almost exactly with what Pete Golding said — 121 of Texas’s rushing yards came late, and the coach and the defensive end independently pointed at the same two missed-tackle plays, both of them lost on leverage the defense drills every week. Purchase didn’t describe a unit that got pushed around; he described one that missed its angles: “it’s just leveraging the ball, taking good angles on tackles… just getting the ball carrier down, that is the biggest difference.” Remember, this is the same defense that held Missouri to 39 rushing yards. Fix the two angles and it’s that defense again.
That matters this week because Auburn’s offense runs through quarterback Byrum Brown, who leads the Tigers with 480 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns — exactly the kind of runner who turns one missed angle into 60 yards. Purchase’s plan is basically five words: get multiple guys to the football, because nobody tackles Byrum Brown one-on-one. And remember who’s delivering the message — Purchase strip-sacked Arch Manning on the first drive of the second half in Austin, Kam Franklin fell on it in the end zone, and that’s his second strip-sack in three games. The comeback was real. It just wasn’t there for two snaps.
The slow starts are on everybody — and the fix has to come in the first quarter
Ole Miss has scored on its opening drive only once all season, against Charlotte, and that’s become the conversation. Caleb Odom didn’t point at a position group when asked what the film shows — he pointed at all of them: “Honestly, we just have to be better. The O-line, the tight end, the receivers.” The take here: John David Baker isn’t the script-writer Lane Kiffin was after six years of doing it, but he’s an upgrade in situational football — red zone, third down — and the offense is fundamentally fine. The least Ole Miss has scored all year is 27. It’s the first quarter, not the fourth, that has to catch up.
Odom’s warning for Saturday: Auburn looks a lot like Texas defensively — real talent up front, different coverages on the back end, a solid front seven. Texas made Ole Miss start slow and nearly made the Rebels pay for it. If Auburn runs the same plan, the answer can’t wait until the third quarter this time.
The offensive line says there’s no drop-off without Kewan Lacy
With Kewan Lacy out, left guard Delano Townsend was asked how much that changes things for the line and didn’t hesitate: “not a lot.” Makhi Frazier steps into the role — he ran for 101 yards against Missouri and 47 after Lacy went down at Texas — and Golding said Shekai Mills-Knight gets a real opportunity this week. The line itself held up in Austin, too: no sack allowed even with Terez Davis out and Connor Howes sliding over, and the interior of Patrick Kutas and Brycen Sanders is back together.
Honest caveat: I don’t know that I fully believe “no drop-off” when you’re replacing a back like Lacy. But the confidence is coming from a room that has already played through injuries and kept rolling, and that’s a very different thing from a team making excuses.
Why everything is still in front of Ole Miss
The sharpest stretch of the show was the math. At 5-2 with no losses left to spend, Ole Miss still controls its own story. Win out — Auburn, Georgia, Oklahoma, Wofford, Mississippi State — and because the schedule is so tough, the Rebels could end up with the best tiebreaker to Atlanta. Frame it as a two-game season: Georgia at home, where Kirby Smart has never beaten Ole Miss anywhere but Athens, and Oklahoma in Norman. Handle the games where Ole Miss will be a double-digit favorite — Auburn, Mississippi State, Wofford — win those two, and a home playoff game in December is genuinely on the table.
The backdrop helps: four of the last five are at home, and Ole Miss hasn’t lost at Vaught-Hemingway in 15 straight games — 38-3 there since 2021. Start fast, get multiple hats on Byrum Brown, and let the building do what it does.
Also on the show: Bill Flowers on the Auburn matchup
Ole Miss legend Bill Flowers stopped in to preview Auburn, and his concern was scheme. He’d like to see a heavier, old-school look when the situation calls for it rather than staying in a pass-first front: “at some point you have to be able to adjust… stop being so concerned about the pass” and sell out to stop the run. His bigger worry is Byrum Brown deciding to become a true run-first quarterback — a dual-threat in the Cam Newton mold who could force the defense into a tough spot if he commits to it. But if Trinidad Chambliss plays like himself, Flowers said, none of that matters. His prediction: 36-21 Ole Miss.
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