One Man to Beat of Red Cup Rebellion joins us this week to preview the Rebs
After pulling an upset win over Florida out of their collective asses, LSU gave the axe to Ed Orgeron and hired…well, Ed Orgeron to be his own interim. Now O takes his Tigers to Oxford as he tries to stick it to Ole Miss one final time. Joining us this week to preview the Rebels is our good friend One Man 2 Beat from Red Cup Rebellion.
1. First I wanted to get your take on the end of the Ed Orgeron era at LSU. He obviously was the head coach at Ole Miss, is the stuff you’re seeing in Baton Rouge history repeating itself?
I don’t think so. I would say the Orgeron era at Ole Miss was marked with good to great recruiting, a lot of micro-managing, but ultimately a ton of losses and no signature wins. The Orgeron era at LSU includes a national championship, a Heisman trophy, and then a Gene Chizik level of fall-off from the highest heights of college football. I’m still not sure how good of a head coach this man is, but I do know his bank account looks like my phone number so that’s something!
2. The other elephant in the room: Lane Kiffin to LSU? Would he leave Oxford for Baton Rouge?
I think Kiffin is a pretty good fit at Ole Miss. I don’t know the man personally, so it’s hard to say what he values the most. However, I do think what he enjoys is being able to pack up and go fishing in Boca Raton for a few days whenever he wants without a lot of criticism. At Ole Miss, if you can do that and still go to bowl games, you’ll probably have a job for a considerable amount of time. Now, I don’t know how that would fly at LSU – I would imagine the leash is a little shorter and patience a little thinner. But, to me, it’s very clear the recruiting advantages at LSU and the ability to pay a top 5 salary would turn just about anyone’s head.
3. Okay now on to the game itself. Ole Miss has one of the best offenses in college football, one of the best play callers and LSU’s secondary is depleted. But Matt Corral is reportedly “not in very good shape,” will he actually miss the game or is this just gamesmanship?
Coach Orgeron said he thinks it’s a smoke screen, so I reckon his years of experience are speaking volumes there. I do think any time you have a QB run the ball 30 times on the road in a tight game, it can be tough to difficult to bounce back immediately into another game week unless you’re that trash ass Cam Newton looking like a grown man playing against kids. Corral isn’t that, so I don’t think Kiffin is boldly lying about this situation – he needs to protect his QB.
4. Bad Matt Corral hasn’t made an appearance yet this season. Has he put that side of him behind him or does he have one of those patented 3TD/4INT games in him?
I really think Corral’s two or three worst appearances last year fueled his offseason, and he has played less “hero ball” this season. The guy has a great arm, and he is super confident, which is both things you want in a QB. He threw his first interception last week against Tennessee on a blown up play, and it’s clear he could have definitely thrown the ball away. Live to play another series. But he tried to force it, and the Vols made a play on him. I hope that one mistake was a wake-up call that teams are going to try and bring pressure, break the line down, get him outside the pocket and make him do it all himself. He doesn’t have a healthy WR room to work with, so I think anything is possible the second half of the season.
5. It’s supposed to be a rocking atmosphere in Oxford Saturday. The game’s supposed to be a sellout and Ole Miss is retiring Eli Manning’s number. Can a depleted LSU team actually pull off a second straight upset?
It’s the Magnolia Bowl. I mean, nothing would surprise me on Saturday. There’s a part of me that thinks back to 2011, which was Houston Nutt’s final season at Ole Miss. The university announced Nutt would part ways at the end of the season, but he would continue to coach the team. The Rebels went on to finish 2-10, one of the worst seasons ever. Clearly, Coach Orgeron hasn’t completely lost the locker room, because the Florida win was pretty huge. I would imagine Coach Orgeron also knows and can communicate to his team how massive of a meaningful game this is for Ole Miss, and how “laissez les bon temps rouler” it would be to ruin it. I’ve learned in my 25 years of watching Ole Miss to not ever put my house note in the gambling till on a Rebels game, especially when they are playing LSU.
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