After opening with one of the nation’s most difficult schedules, the No. 12 Ole Miss football team enjoyed its first open date of the season last week.
Ole Miss has returned to work to prepare for its game against No. 22 Arkansas at 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN) at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
“There is still a lot of work to be done, and when you say off week, it’s certainly not that you are off, there’s still a lot of recruiting to be done,” Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said. “Get on the road and visit with some schools and some coaches. Watched some kids play and at the same time try to improve your football team and get them a little healthier for a stretch run.”
At 3-2 and 1-1 in the Southeastern Conference, Ole Miss is still alive in the Western Division race. Arkansas (4-2, 0-2) lost to No. 1 Alabama 49-30 on Saturday night at home.
Ole Miss will look to shake off back-to-back losses to Arkansas. A year ago in Oxford, Arkansas had a miracle fourth-down conversion before posting a 53-52 overtime victory.
“(They were) two totally different games,” Freeze said. “The first one was in November in Fayetteville, the weather was awful and we were disappointed after a Laquon Treadwell injury that kind of knocked us out of things. I didn’t do a good job getting our team ready to play. Offensively we were atrocious that night up there. Last year was a shootout, we couldn’t stop them and they couldn’t stop us.”
“I thought we won the game a couple times, obviously, but they made a miraculous play on the fourth down. We stopped them on the two-point play and then we had a penalty and they converted. That game could have been won or lost a lot of different times, but we struggled to stop them. A lot of it has to do with the tight ends they had last year. They have some good ones this year also. The way they use them, you have to add to the box to try to stop their run and then their quarterback that played extremely well, when you do that and using their tight ends and wide outs to win some one-on-ones and we struggled stopping that last year.”
Freeze knows the game could be another high-scoring affair.
“I think the offenses of today are so flexible (so teams) can come in the games and do different things to you that you may have not totally prepared for,” Freeze said. “All of a sudden they’ve got some momentum and they are feeling confident about running the football. We have had our struggles with some of that, so it is not surprising every week to try to get things fixed for the next one. Again, matchups seem to be important also. I know Bret (Bielema) and his staff. Robb Smith has done a great job coordinating defenses. I am sure they will get some things worked on and have them fixed for this week.”
While players usually rest up during a break, coaches hit the road to recruit players and to see them play in person.
“I think we were successful in a lot of areas with that and we had three good workouts and a lot of good vibes on the recruiting trail,” Freeze said. “Ole Miss continues to be in the mix for a lot of the top players, so it validates the job our coaches are doing at building relationships with the high school coaches and with the players we are recruiting. This league continues to just amaze me. It has changed in a lot of ways and yet the difficulty still remains. The offensive outputs teams are putting up is not what is the norm in the Southeastern Conference. It is making for some exciting football games.
“One thing you kept seeing was these games are never over. The offenses and the skill guys, the way the clock is used in college football is just always a chance that you can make a comeback, and you saw that in the Tennessee vs. Texas A&M game and the Alabama vs. Arkansas game. That is very interesting to me, left me feeling like we are playing another one of the top teams in the nation in Arkansas.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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