Three different people watched the same film this week and came back with the same two plays.
Pete Golding got there first, on Monday. Blake Purchase got there Tuesday, independently, in a different room, with a number he counted himself. Michael Katz of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal got there with a charted split that backed both of them up. Nobody coordinated it. That convergence is the story of the week at Ole Miss, and it is the reason a 34-27 loss in Austin did not turn into a crisis.
The other story is that Kewan Lacy is out, and the head coach said so on a Monday, which coaches do not do.
Two Runs, Three Film Rooms, One Diagnosis
Golding opened the week with the number. “There’s 121 of their rushing yards is in the 4th quarter from the 10 and a half minute mark on,” he said Monday. “It’s 2 plays, right, with vice tackles in the hole.”
Then he drew the line that framed everything after it: “I’m not mad that we missed the tackle. They’re not perfect. They’re going to miss tackles. It’s how we missed the tackle and we didn’t miss the leverage side.”
Golding told the Rebels about it Sunday night. “It was a come to Jesus last night, man. Like, you show me so many times, I got to believe you, right?”
Purchase, asked Tuesday what changed in the fourth quarter, had gone back to the tape on his own. “They had like 100 or something plus yards on 2 rushes. So they had that like in the whole game really. So like I look at the back of those plays, it’s just like just little mistakes. It’s just leveraging the ball, taking good angles on tackles.”
Same two plays. Same word — leverage. The head coach and the defensive end found it separately.
Katz, who was in Austin, supplied the split that makes it concrete. Texas had seven carries of 10 yards or more. The rest of the night was 35 carries for 42 yards. “I do think that their run defense performance was maybe a little bit overstated last week in terms of how bad it was,” he said. “The Florida tape was a lot worse.”
That is three people, no coordination, converging on the idea that Ole Miss did not get run over. It got out-leveraged twice. Golding’s structural fix is a deeper rotation up front — Will Echoles left the game for an IV with a dehydration issue, and the defense had already played 74 snaps by the fourth quarter. “We got to do a little better job from a consistent rotation standpoint up front,” Golding said, “to make sure we’re not losing our better players late in games.”
“There’s No Chance”: Lacy Dislocated the Shoulder
The one genuine piece of news this week came out plainly on Monday.
“To hit Kewan, dislocated his shoulder in the game,” Golding said. “So it wasn’t exactly what it was before. It was different. So with the combination of both of those, obviously he’s not going to play this week.”
Then the part that mattered: “I know normally people wouldn’t tell you that, but there’s no chance that we’re going to try that at all this week.”
No game-time decision. No Wednesday walk-back. Golding knew he was breaking convention and said so inside the same answer. Lacy is still in rehab and still getting MRIs, and Ole Miss will evaluate week to week from here.
What leaves with him: Lacy’s 36 yards in Austin moved him into a tie with Dexter McCluster for 11th in Ole Miss history at 1,955 career rushing yards. It was his 21st career start.
Golding named the replacements in order. Makhi Frazier first — the Michigan State transfer ran for 101 yards on 15 carries against Missouri and, after Lacy went down at Texas, carried six times for 47. Then Shekai Mills-Knight: “Shekai is going to have a real opportunity this week as well.” Then JT Lindsey and Joshua Dye in protection and out of the backfield.
Left guard Delano Townsend was asked how much it changes up front. “Not a lot,” he said. “Kewan is our guy, but, you know, when he’s not able to go, Makhi steps up in that role. So I don’t think it’s like really a drop-off.”
That line is easier to take seriously than it sounds. Ole Miss has allowed five sacks all season — 0.71 per game, best in the SEC and sixth nationally — and it has done that while shuffling the line. Terez Davis did not play at Texas. Connor Howes slid from right tackle to left. The Rebels did not give up a sack.
The Quarterback Who Stopped Running
Trinidad Chambliss finished 25-of-52 for 250 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. At halftime he was 6-of-18 with two picks. The 52 attempts were the most by an Ole Miss quarterback in a game since 2017.
He did not hide. “I played terrible tonight,” he said. “I was careless with the football and I made bad decisions.”
Golding’s film read was more divided than the box score. “I think he missed some throws. I think some of the timing of the routes, some of those were choice concepts,” he said, then walked through a specific one — a five-yard option route into the boundary where Chambliss saw the defender inside and Caleb Odom broke the other way. “So a lot of them were just not on the same page.” Texas also knocked down eight balls at the line.
The number this show has been charting for three weeks is the rushing one. Chambliss ran for seven yards at Texas. That is three straight games under 10. Asked why the rushing component vanished, Golding gave the most useful answer of the week:
“There were a lot of times that first read wasn’t there last year, I’m gone. Which is something that makes him who he is. And so I think you’ll see a little more of that moving forward.”
Golding also said defenses have built spies and coverage concepts specifically to keep eyes on him, and that part of the drop-off is Chambliss working through progressions instead of taking off. Both can be true. The head coach saying “you’ll see a little more of that moving forward” on a Monday, out loud, to the entire SEC, is a plan being announced.
Ole Miss legend Todd Wade put it in sharper terms on Thursday: “I think he is an elite talent running the ball, and it’s almost like people forget that because he’s had so much success throwing the ball.” Wade compared the line of scrimmage to the one in Field of Dreams that Chambliss will not cross.
Even on the worst night of his Ole Miss career, Chambliss threw a touchdown pass for the 20th straight game, second-longest in school history behind Chad Kelly’s 22. He also passed Matt Corral for eighth-most career touchdown passes at Ole Miss (38) and passed John Fourcade for eighth-most career completions (461) — on the same Saturday Fourcade was booked for Monday’s show.
What Auburn Actually Is
Auburn comes to Oxford at 4-3, 2-3 in the SEC, two weeks removed from beating No. 1 Georgia 27-24 in Athens and six days removed from losing 38-17 at home to LSU.
Golding was blunt about where the offense lives. “Obviously the offense runs through the quarterback. Dual threat guy leads the SEC in quarterback run game, so you got to be able to account for him on base downs.” He described one throw this season that traveled 75 to 80 yards in the air.
Byrum Brown — the South Florida transfer who followed Alex Golesh to Auburn — leads the Tigers with 480 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns, and he has run for a score in five straight games. He has thrown for 1,365 yards with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions.
Golding’s instruction was one sentence: “The key to the drill to me is you got to eliminate the quarterback run game. You got to create some negative yardage plays early to get them to obvious passing downs.”
Purchase gave the mechanics. “He a really dynamic runner. He can also throw the ball pretty well. So really just making sure we run to the ball, get multiple guys on him because he’s definitely a hard guy to get down.”
Nobody tackles Byrum Brown alone. That is the plan.
Bill Flowers supplied the week’s best dissent on Wednesday. His worry is not that Brown runs. It is that Brown starts running. “It’s like he has this NFL evaluation on him that, hey, we need you to be more of a pocket passer,” Flowers said. “If he wakes up and realizes, okay, I’m gonna run this ball more than I’m gonna throw it — that’s gonna put your defense in a world apart.” He compared Brown to Cam Newton and called a run-first version a “Swiss Army knife.”
It is worth noting that Flowers was describing in Brown exactly what Wade was describing in Chambliss, on back-to-back episodes, about opposite sidelines. Two quarterbacks who can run, both of whom have reasons not to.
The matchup numbers, though, are lopsided in places that matter. Auburn has allowed 30 sacks, 4.29 per game, the most in the SEC; Brown himself has been sacked 29 times. Auburn allows 250.7 passing yards per game, 115th in the FBS. Auburn’s opponents score on 95.2% of red zone trips, 128th nationally. Ole Miss scores on 96.2% of its own, fifth.
Katz, on Saturday’s show, found the cleanest way to say it: “This seems like a game where Will Echoles and his friends could eat a little bit.”
One subplot nobody has made enough of: Jalyn Crawford, who intercepted Arch Manning twice in Austin — the first Rebel with two in a game since Trey Washington in 2023 — transferred to Ole Miss from Auburn. Ole Miss has five interceptions in its last three games. Crawford was listed as questionable on Wednesday’s availability report.
Corrections, Because That’s the Deal
We said some things wrong on the air this week. Here they are.
- Ole Miss is 39-3 at home since 2021, not 38-3. We used 38-3 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Michael Katz said 39-3 on Saturday’s show and he was right; we corrected him on the air, and we were the ones who were wrong. Friday’s show also said “38-13 in Oxford,” which is wrong twice over. The 15-game home winning streak is correct and is the second-longest active streak in the FBS.
- Georgia comes to Oxford on November 7, not November 17. Tuesday’s Flagship said the 17th. Every other reference this week was correct.
- Texas won 34-27. Monday’s Flagship said “37-24 at the end” while making a separate point. The final was 34-27.
- Byrum Brown’s rushing total is 480, not 487. Friday’s show used 487. The spelling is Byrum, not Byron.
- Auburn did not beat Georgia handily. On Monday’s show, John Fourcade said Auburn “beat them pretty handily” and “took them apart.” It was 27-24, on the road, over the No. 1 team in the country. The win was real; the margin was three points.
- Florida-Georgia is at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Monday’s show called it the Georgia Dome. The Georgia Dome was demolished in 2017. The game moved to Atlanta for 2026 while EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville is renovated.
- The LSU eligibility case: slow down. We discussed it Thursday and Friday and put a career-earnings figure on it — $90,000 on one show, $87,000 on the other. We could not verify either number, so treat both as unsaid. The player is RJ Luis Jr. Published reporting says he went undrafted in 2025, signed a two-way contract with Utah and later an Exhibit 10 with Boston. We said he was traded; we have found nothing supporting that. A preliminary injunction hearing is set for November 13. Everything beyond that is speculation, including ours.
One more that is a sourcing note rather than an error: Friday’s show built a segment on Auburn allowing 387 passing yards to LSU’s Sam Leavitt. We have not been able to confirm that figure against a primary source, so take it as our number until it is. The verified version of the same argument is stronger anyway: Auburn is 115th nationally in passing yards allowed.
On the Mic This Week
- Pete Golding (Monday presser) — Gave up the Lacy news without hedging, put a number on the fourth quarter, and told the SEC that Chambliss is going to run more.
- Blake Purchase (Tuesday presser) — Came in with his own film count on the two runs, and reduced the Byrum Brown plan to one idea: get multiple guys on him.
- Caleb Odom (Tuesday presser) — Took the slow starts and spread the blame across every position group including his own, and credited the fans for the home record.
- Delano Townsend (Tuesday presser) — “Not a lot.” The offensive line is not treating Lacy’s absence as a problem, and the sack numbers back him.
- John Fourcade (Monday) — Argued the Texas game was one that got away rather than one Ole Miss got beaten in, and made the case that Lacy should be protected from himself.
- Bill Flowers (Wednesday) — The week’s loudest dissent: wants a bulkier front against the run, and thinks a run-first Byrum Brown is the thing that beats Ole Miss.
- Todd Wade (Thursday) — Said the Texas plan looked “eerily similar to Florida,” wants Ole Miss to defer, and praised Connor Howes at left tackle as a “diamond in the rough.”
- Tom, the mayor of Corinth (Thursday) — Wants Ole Miss to receive, not defer, and picked it 38-17.
- Michael Katz, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Saturday) — Brought the charted run splits, the sack comparison, and a first look at the basketball team.
- Kevin Rogers, Locked On Bets (Saturday) — Walked the SEC board and landed on Ole Miss laying the points.
- Chris Beard (Tuesday presser) — Called for a banner in the Pavilion for Andy Kennedy and said Ole Miss basketball can do better at telling its own history.
- Andy Kennedy (Tuesday presser) — Back in Oxford for the first time as a visiting coach. “I leave bloodied but not bruised.”
Away from football: Ole Miss beat UAB 92-78 in Tuesday’s exhibition with six players in double figures, Budd Clark leading the way at 18 points and seven assists, and the Rebels winning the rebounding battle 30-29 after trailing it at the half. And Mitchell Turner, the No. 1 player in Mississippi out of Louisville High School, shut down his recruitment Tuesday: “100% committed to Ole Miss.”
Where It Stands
Ole Miss is 5-2, 3-2 in the SEC, No. 12 in the AP poll. Four of the last five games are in Oxford, where the Rebels have won 15 straight and are 39-3 since 2021. The one road trip is Norman on November 14.
Auburn leads the all-time series 35-13 and is 13-4 in Oxford, but Ole Miss has taken the last two — 48-34 in 2022 and 28-21 in 2023. Kickoff is 11:45 a.m. Central, 12:45 Eastern, on SEC Network. Georgia follows on November 7.
The margin for error is gone. The goal is not. Purchase said it the way a player says it: “Now we got to go 1-0 every day.”
One last thing, and it is the kind of detail that only shows up if you read the notes: the onside kick Ole Miss recovered in Austin was its first since the 2023 Auburn game.
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