After gaining just 71 yards on the ground in the 35-13 win over Boise State, Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze has a message for his offensive line this week - Get physical.
"We didn’t play physical in the run game, and they had a good scheme and were committed to stopping the run," Freeze said. "They had safeties making tackles at line of scrimmage. They were going to commit to stop that and thus the passing game had big plays in it. There are some times against certain schemes it’s hard to run it period, but it was not just the scheme. We played very tentative, and we did a poor job preparing our kids for that, and we have to get that fixed."
Freeze said the false start penalties that put the offense behind schedule were part of the problem.
As a result, the running backs experienced little in the way of success. Mark Dodson and Jordan Wilkins each had more yards than starters I'Tavius Mathers and Jaylen Walton, but when the team's rushing total is 71 yards nobody looked especially great.
"The other night they didn’t have anywhere to run," Freeze said. "We did a poor job preparing and they had a good scheme to stop the run. We didn’t play physical, and that’s a result of the stemming and noise that was being made. We jumped offsides so many times."
Freeze said you can expect to see more of all four backs this week.
"We’ll start having packages for each running back and we’ll play to their strengths," Freeze said. "I think I’Tavius and Dodson and Wilkins can do anything we ask them to do. Jaylen is a favorite but when he’s in the pass protection needs to be geared toward what he can do."
Freeze also said freshman guard Rod Taylor will play more snaps this week.
Expect to see a concerted effort to develop the ground game against Vanderbilt (0-1) on Saturday.
The Commodores gave up 145 yards rushing to Temple in the Commodores' embarrassing 37-7 home loss on Saturday.