SEC Football: Can The Newest Rebel Coach Change His Ways at Ole Miss

In the latest edition of the Ole Miss spring game, Houston Nutt found himself on familiar ground(the football field) but in unfamiliar territory.

The normally ground attack oriented Nutt found himself in the possession of a less than robust running attack, but with a Quarterback who can throw the ball. The Ole Miss spring game produced only 203 yards rushing, and that was by both teams combined. The passing game was a different story however. Jevean Snead, the transfer from Texas, completed 20 of 26 passes(77%) for 269 yards, 2 TD's and 1 INT. At first glance, one would think that the "ol coach" might be changing his offensive philosophy. In the words of Lee Corso, "not so fast, my friend".

What a quandry it must be for a coach who relied so heavily on a solid running game during his time at Arkansas. A lack of a dominating run game? Don't get the wrong idea, Nutt doesn't really mind throwing the ball, he just prefers to throw high percentage completion-low risk passes of the short yardage variety and most frequently to running backs. This game was no different in that 55% of the completions on the Blue team were to RB's for 51% of the passing yardage.

Still, after the run dominating offenses that we have become accustomed to seeing Houston Nutt turn out, I must admit I was a bit disappointed in the overall lack of power rushing yardage in the game.

One thing did remain the same though and that was Nutt's tendency to pick out a couple of good running backs and one receiver and put the majority of the offensive yardage in their hands. In this case those three were McCluster, Eason and Wallace. McCluster ran 5 times for 35 yards and 1 TD while catching 8 passes for 106 yards. Eason ran 7 times for 108 yards and 2 TD's and caught 1 pass for 11 yards. Between the two of them they accounted for 260 yards. The other major chunk of yardage was generated by WR Mike Wallace who had 5 catches for 90 yards. Those three players accounted for 350 of the 409 total yards or 86% of the offense of the Blue team. This sounds a great deal like three other names he should be familiar with from his time at Arkansas........McFadden, Jones and Monk.

The puzzling thing about all of this is that Jevean Snead may be a really good QB with a pretty solid arm who expects to get to throw the ball downfield more. Two years ago, as a Freshmen at Texas, he ran 27 times for 124 yards and was 26-49 for 371 yards, 3 TD's and 2 INT's. As a running and throwing QB he might be a huge asset to Nutt. He may not get to exercise the option to run or throw often though. When I saw the size of the offensive line that returns at Ole Miss I knew that Houston Nutt must be salivating like a starving man at a Mississippi barbecue. Though they lost their starting center, they return both guards and tackles and they average about 6'4" and 328 lbs. across the front. If that isn't a line designed for a power run game, I don't know what is.

I also notice that Nutt has brought the "Wild Rebel" formation with him from Arkansas(formerly known as the Wild Hog). Darren McFadden excelled in this formation during the last year or two of Nutt's reign there and while that offensive philosophy does offer the opportunity for throwing the ball, it wasn't done often at Arkansas and I suspect that we will see the same transpire at Ole Miss.

Now I know that many of you, particularly if you are Ole Miss fans are saying, "how can you make an assumption like that after we just saw the ball thrown all over the field?" Well, frankly, it is just an educated guess on my part, but backed up by some facts. If we look at Nutt's last 8 years at Arkansas we find that Nutt's teams averaged a national ranking in rushing of #19 in the country with an average of 214 yards per game. In passing they averaged a #97 ranking with 164 yards per game. Can we see a pattern forming here? Meanwhile, Ole Miss teams over that same span of time averaged a national ranking of #79 with an average of 128 yards rushing per game and averaged a #57 ranking in passing offense with 221 yards per game. Arkansas teams over those 8 years averaged about a 7-5 record each year(59.18% win percentage to be exact) and Ole Miss teams averaged about a 6-5 record each year(53.57%).

Will Nutt be better for Ole Miss than Orgeron was? Yes, without a doubt. Houston Nutt will be a better coach at Ole Miss and provide you with more victories and opportunities to go to bowl games than what you have had in recent memory.

The big question is: Will Nutt allow the development and the actual use of an effective passing game downfield? I doubt it. Expect a lot of running. The newest Rebel may find it very hard to change his ways. Old habits do die hard.

That's just my take, from outside the boundaries.