No celebrations, plenty of noise: Tigers ready for Rebel tempo
10/10/2024
By Hunt Palmer
Somewhere over the last two decades, time of possession yielded to tempo.
Coaches used to preach ball control and lengthy drives. Run the ball. Run the clock.
These days many coaches want to move as quickly as possible on offense, keeping the defense on its heels and limiting substitutions and defensive audibles.
Boise State leads the country in scoring offense. The Broncos rank No. 74 in time of possession. Tennessee is ranked fifth in scoring offense and 65th in possession time.
Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss teams certainly abide by the modern philosophy and tend to take it to the extreme.
The Rebels have rolled up 44 points per game on average, good for 10th in the country while ranking 116th of 143 teams in time of possession. The Rebels want to get the ball and go.
“I feel like their tempo is what really gets people, because you don’t really see that many teams running crazy tempo like that,” said LSU senior defensive end Sai’vion jones. “It surprises players when you see them finish a play. They don’t celebrate, they just line back up and do it again.”
Kiffin and his offensive staff have trained their playmakers to set the ball as quickly as possible after a chunk gain so that officials can ready play almost immediately. The Rebels rank first in the country of plays of 30 or more yards, second to Miami in plays of 20 or more.
They don’t spike the ball or demonstrably signal first down. They run another play.
“It creates a lot of challenges,” said LSU senior linebacker Greg Penn. “After the play, we need to tone down the celebrations and get back to the next play, because they’re going to snap the ball really fast. So, getting our feet in the ground will be very important for us to go out there and execute.”
The Tigers have spent two weeks preparing for the up-tempo attack.
“I feel like there are two ways you can do it,” Jones said. “You can do it in a physical way, as in quickly run plays over and over again. But I feel l like the better way is the mental way. Having the offense line up, and you have your back turned. Once the offense is set, you turn around and get ready. They snap the ball right then.”
Ole Miss has only won possession time once in its first six contests, a 1:18 second advantage on Wake Forest. That hasn’t prevented the Rebs from scoring points. Of Ole Miss’s 43 scoring drives this season, 31 of them have taken less than three minutes off the clock. Just three have taken five-plus minutes.
“You just have to prepare yourself mentally,” Jones said. “If they start driving the ball down the field, which they won’t, we gotta prepare ourselves. We know that we can’t get subs. So, we just have to put our hand in the dirt and just stay strong-minded.”
There are ways to prevent the tempo.
Generally, Ole Miss doesn’t move to warp speed until a first down or chunk play is produced. LSU knows limiting those can tilt the advantage to the Tigers.
“You can’t tempo if you don’t gain much yardage,” Jones said. “The way they do their tempo, they get off big plays and first downs. If you stop the big plays and eliminate the first downs, then they can’t tempo.”
The other challenge can be crowd noise. A sold-out Tiger Stadium should be at full throat Saturday night for a Top 10 matchup.
Of course, the crowd noise doesn’t only affect the visiting offense. LSU’s defense also has a play to get called and a formation to line up in. As the Mike linebacker, Penn says he shoulders much of the onus of communicating the defense, but the has help.
“The safeties are doing a good job communicating, too,” Penn said. “I think we all have to help each other because on defense it’s usually loud. That’s when Tiger Stadium is at its peak, so us communicating is very important. When it’s third down, you can imagine. It’s tough.”
Third downs are crucial in any game but might take on a little less importance against Ole Miss.
“(Defensive coordinator Blake) Baker was telling us in a meeting that after third down don’t even celebrate because they’re probably going for it on fourth down,” Penn said.
Baker has a point.
Ole Miss has ranked in the Top 10 as far as fourth down conversion attempts every full season since Kiffin arrived in Oxford. That number is down this year, but Ole Miss hasn’t faced many third downs and fourth downs against lesser teams in the early going.
While Ole Miss believes in its identity, it can be vulnerable.
Two weeks ago, Kentucky completely controlled the clock in its upset win in Oxford. The Wildcats used drives of 7:38, 6:26, 5:45 and 4:34 to create a time of possession advantage of 39:43 to 20:17, nearly 2-to-1. The Wildcats ran 75 plays to the Rebels 56.
Total offense and yards per play favored Ole Miss, but when the clock struck zeros the Wildcats won, 20-17.
LSU may look to follow that model on Saturday night. The Tigers rank No. 37 in the country in possession time and have used the short passing game to drain the clock on the way to points.
“Clearly if you can win that game of possession time, you are at clear advantage,” LSU head coach Brian Kelly said. “But you’ve got to score points, too. It can’t always just be possession, possession. You have to eventualize yourself in terms of putting points on the board.”
