LSU at Ole Miss: Three Matchups to Watch

By Hunt Palmer

Saturday’s winner between LSU and Ole Miss feels like a likely playoff team.

Plenty of season remains. Losses happen. Injuries change things. Nothing is guaranteed. But the winner carries the undefeated status into October and has two losses worth of wiggle room to play with after five weeks of football.

Those are the stakes in Vaught Hemingway on Saturday.

These coaching staffs are familiar with one another. Both head coaches and sets of coordinators squared off last season in Baton Rouge. The rosters look different.

Let’s highlight three matchups that will help determine what 5-0 team emerges on Saturday night in Oxford.

OLE MISS OFFENSIVE LINE VS. LSU DEFENSIVE LINE

The Rebels are replacing four starters from last year’s offensive front. Only left tackle Diego Pounds returns.  Left guard Delano Townsend is a UAB transfer. Center Brycen Sanders waited his turn as a freshman last year. Right guard Patrick Kutas has started 17 games between Arkansas and Ole Miss, and right tackle Jayden Williams has made 24 starts at Ole Miss over four years. He’s a veteran.

The misconception about Lane Kiffin is that he loves to air it out. He actually prefers to run the ball. A ton.

Since 2020, only Air Force, Army, Navy, Liberty and UCF have run the ball for more yards per game than Ole Miss. That makes the Rebels the best rushing offense in the Power Four (with respect to UCF which spent much of that in the American).

The Rebels have run the ball 43.5 times per game this year for 5.03 yards per carry. LSU allows half that, 2.6 yards per rush defensively.

Clemson ran 20 times for 31 yards. Florida ran 27 times for 79 yards. That’s 2.3 yards per rush. If Ole Miss runs for 2.3 yards per carry, that’s going to put a mountain of pressure on backup quarterback Trinidad Chambliss to win through the air. DJ Lagway and Cade Klubnik both failed that test.

LSU will be without defensive end Gabriel Reliford, but Jack Pyburn, Patrick Payton, Dominick McKinley, Bernard Gooden, Ahmad Breaux and Jacobian Guillory will be tasked with shutting down the rushing attack led by Kewan Lacy who has seven rushing touchdowns.

BLAKE BAKER VS. TRINIDAD CHAMBLISS

Last year in this feature I highlighted Baker against Kiffin. And that matchup still looms very large. But Kiffin’s microphone gets cut just before the snap, and then Chambliss is on his own. Jaxson Dart had made 34 FBS starts entering last year’s game. Chambliss has two.

Baker loves to simulate pressure and confuse the quarterback with the presnap picture and the postsnap movement. Chambliss will have never seen anything move at the speed he’ll see Saturday afternoon.

For Klubnik and Lagway, that resulted in six interceptions and only two completions of 25 yards. Usually, Ole Miss is the one creating the confusion. That’s why the Rebel offense leads the country in explosive passing plays with 25 of 20-plus.

It will be up to Chambliss to understand what Baker is drawing up with a host of future pros roaming the defense.

LSU WIDE RECEIVERS VS. OLE MISS DEFENSIVE BACKS

LSU is going to try to run the ball on Saturday afternoon, and it probably won’t go well. It didn’t against Louisiana Tech, so why would it at Ole Miss even against the worst run defense in the SEC? So, the key is how well LSU can move the ball through the air.

Ole Miss’s secondary has done a great job so far against poor competition. The Rebels rank third in the country in completion percentage allowed.

Antonio Kite (Auburn/Alabama) and Chris Graves Jr. (Miami) are former four-star recruits who have transferred in. They’re both 6-feet and have played well. The safeties Kapena Gushiken and Wydett Williams have combined for six pass breakups.

Georgia State, Kentucky and Tulane aren’t very good. Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green threw for 305 yards on the Rebels, but his style of play does not mirror Garrett Nussmeier’s.

LSU hasn’t gotten the passing game cooking just yet. There are plenty of weapons, but that rhythm hasn’t been there. Trey’Dez Green is back this week. He was a matchup problem for Clemson.

If LSU’s defense smothers Ole Miss like it did Clemson and Florida, another pedestrian effort offensively might work. However, that feels less likely against Kiffin and Ole Miss. LSU needs to put points on the board in this game, and that’s likely to come from the passing game, which will need its best performance of the young season.