[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports podcast. And now, here's your host, Matt Jones.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Today on the show, Brad Logan from Mississippi joins us to talk about Ole Miss. We'll also talk about the Razorbacks game with Christina Long, their game at Ole Miss this weekend. But first, a word from Kendall King.
[00:00:16] Speaker C: At Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design.
We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King, Soapbox and Shopcart. Together, these brands represent a new focus in marketing design with individual attention to specific.
Through our design expertise, supported by a team of talented professionals, we showcase our best. We are Kendall King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are Design.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: We start today's show with Brad Logan of the Logan Media Network. He covers Ole Miss athletics. Brad, what's the feeling like down in Oxford about this game this weekend?
[00:00:52] Speaker D: Well, I think a lot of people. Matt. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. A lot of people are kind of wondering if it will be kind of the same thing that happened last year. And I think most people believe it will not. I mean, you look what Arkansas did last week against Arkansas State, of course, their first game of the year. The way that Taylor Green has looked at quarterback under that Bobby Petrino offense and, and honestly, Matt, one of the few quarterbacks coming back in the same system in the SEC and not, not a lot of quarterbacks can say that that are starters. So I think it'll be much different than we saw last year in Fayetteville. The good news for Ole Miss is the defense is looking much better than people thought. It's coming together under defense coordinator Pete Golding. I think Xavier Harris is making a lot of money at defensive tackle. He looked really good. Looks apart. And then Sundarian Perkins, the outside linebacker, along with TJ Gottery. Really, really good focal points. Wide receiver room looks good. Question marks on the offensive line. Running backs look good. We saw Kawan Lacey really put some things together the last couple of weeks since leading the conference in rushing. But the question, I think, honestly, is the question we didn't think we would have going into the season. And that's with quarterback Austin Simmons. He looked rough in the early going against Georgia State, and we all saw the first two drives. Led to 10 Kentucky points, spotted the Wildcats 100 lead by two interceptions. Didn't protect football, kind of, you know, did not go through his progressions. Kind of zeroed in on receivers and we could talk about a bad snap here or there, but those throws Were rushed and I do think there's a cause of concern for Ole Miss fans. Although it looked better in the second half, I think leaning on Kawan Lacey probably is going to help him with that. But they're definitely causes of concern. And I don't know what the point spread is right now. I saw it somewhere around 8 or 9, but I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. I have no idea what to expect kind of going into the weekend because I think both these teams are much different than they were last year when they played.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Is Simmons hurt?
[00:02:48] Speaker D: I don't think so. I think he had a little bit of a roll up of an ankle, maybe a little bit of a knee, but was helped off the field. Matt, as you guys saw that watch the game and we thought it would be pretty severe. The television guys, we would. I would later learn after the attacks is that they were saying it was an ankle. It's what the sideline reporter was reporting.
He would come back into the game. We asked Lane on Monday at the press conference, is Austin Simmons injured? And he said he's not. He could have come back into the game. Trinidad Chambliss, a transfer quarterback out of Ferris State, came into the game, won a national championship last year and is going to be a part of the offense. Elaine mentioned that that was the plan to play him, but obviously we would see Simmons come back into the game at the end of the game, but it was just to take a knee and to hand it off a couple of times. So judging by Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin, there's no injury to Austin Simmons.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: 30 to 23. Ole Miss beat Kentucky last weekend. What'd you learn about the team?
[00:03:45] Speaker D: I think more than anything is is adversity. And Lane talked about he wanted this team to go through adversity to try to learn from it. Mainly from the quarterback position, I think. I think, you know, not speaking for Lane at all, but I think the defense kind of learned from adversity as well. Being thrown in the fire. Down seven, nothing, down ten, nothing, just like that. And to be able to come off and the limit Kentucky and then the offense kind of got things going behind.
Come on Lacey. And then wow, Trey Wallace, the wide receiver for Ole Miss has been a very, very important part of this offense. Whether it's running the speed sweep or are catching the ball down the field. A lot of those passes, Matt, were under throws. He had to go up and get the football. So I think adversity is key. You know, one stat I'll Throw at you, Matt, is this team was.03 in one score games last year.
The year before ole Miss won 10 games, went to the Peach Bowl. Ole Miss was four. No, they won all their close games. Their losses were blowouts. Last year the losses were very, very tight. So they started the year off one and oh, and in one score games they would eventually. You know, I think that's a little bit of a misnomer. It was stretched to 10 before Kentucky kicked a late field goal. But in any event, they're still one and oh and one score games. And I think adversity is key. Seeing early adversity because last year you saw the team, you saw they started with four cupcakes and this year they do not. I mean, you know, say what you want about Kentucky. I mean, I think there's an argument they're probably the poorest team in the sec.
But anytime you go on the road early in the year, the crowd was a factor. Early on, especially when they, they being Kentucky was up 10 to nothing played a factor in the game. So there was some adversity there. Ole Miss overcame it and then won the game.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: You know, you mentioned that the schedule that Ole Miss played last year and when they played Kentucky at home, they lost last year, the first real team they played. We're kind of in a similar situation here in Arkansas where they haven't played anybody yet and now they're going to play, you know, obviously a real legit team on Saturday down there.
I wonder maybe if you think that that works against Arkansas this week.
[00:05:49] Speaker D: Well, it definitely worked against Ole Miss last year. I, you know, I'm not sure about Arkansas, but you know, even the team mentioned, you know, when we met with some of them in the media day before the season started back in August and, and asked them, do you wish you would have had a little more competition? Now at the time the schedule was built, Wake Forest was pretty good. I mean that was 10 years in advance. So you never know a lot of these, these schedules, but you know, they were really bad last year. And so not having a competent team that you face prior to Kentucky, they kind of roll the ball out there. You know, nobody really said anything about Kentucky and by the time Ole Miss looked up, it was 20 to 17 and it was too late. And so they had an opportunity late in the game last year and couldn't, couldn't get the job done this year. I said going into the game that Ole Miss a couple of keys to victory. Not all of those things came true, but the main One came true for Ole Miss is don't roll the ball out there and expect to win. I didn't think Ole Miss went out there with any, any type of decision other than go out and win the game. They did not overlook Kentucky at all. And Lane Kiffin even admitted on Monday, whether he meant to or not, that they, they game planned all week, all summer for, for Kentucky because they didn't want that to happen what happened last year. So. And it didn't. And you can credit the coaching staff. But boy quickly turned to Arkansas after seeing what Sam Pittman's crew and Bobby Petrino's crew and Taylor Green did to Arkansas State. And I don't know what type of team Butch Jones had. I watched the replay. It's obvious that Arkansas had a lot more athletes than Arkansas State. But you have to put it together and you have to play on the field and, you know, you hit against each other for a couple of weeks. And I know it's always exciting to go against someone else. So it's one thing to say that they haven't played anybody, but on the flip side, you know, I think Arkansas had much more of a pulse and some of the teams Ole Miss played last year, so I do think that probably helps Arkansas. But yeah, having Ole Miss early in the season, normally we don't see this be. Whether it be Ole Miss and Arkansas play this early in the year, most of it's in the middle of the season or at the back half. So something else new with this conference schedule.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: You touched on Keevon Lacy a little bit earlier. You know, he leads the SEC in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns. And then another stat that I saw in the Ole Miss game notes this week was that he leads college football in the number of missed tackles that he has forced.
[00:08:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: How much has he changed the Ole Miss running game this year?
[00:08:10] Speaker D: It's turning on his head, Matt. I mean, it's not even remotely the same if, you know, if, if ink butts for candy nuts, we'd all weigh 500 pounds. But, you know, you talk about, if you, if you had come on Lacey on this team last year, I think the sky was the limit. It was absolutely the deficit of the team.
And so having him this year, and that's. It's interesting you say that because in the post game podcast slash video whatever that we do after the game, I made mention that it felt like even when Kawan Lacey was hit at the line of scrimmage, he fell forward.
Even when he was hit, he kind of rolled off a Kentucky defender to get a yard or two and in some instances he would get 10, 12 extra yards just by, you know, running hard. And you know, it's almost like you would be describing someone that looks like, you know, a big bowling ball, someone like a Braylon Russell in Arkansas. But it's not, it's. It's someone that is, is not very big. He doesn't have a lot of size and he had 28 carries. You know, I expected that to kind of be split up with he and Logan Diggs and maybe Damien Thomas, but it wasn't. I mean it was pretty much all, it was all Kwan Lacy. And so, yeah, that's an interesting stat and I believe it because as soon as he hits contact, it's not like he goes down. And that was one of the detriments. And one, one other issue is the, the under thrown ball that Trey Wallace went up and got that kind of kind of ignited Ole Miss his offense. It led to a touchdown.
Lacey picked up a linebacker or safety or one of the defenders for Kentucky and just pancaked him and then, and then got on top of him. You know, we didn't see that last year from a running back to be able to block like that. Now Henry Perris was pretty good, but of course he was injured in that Arkansas game. That's kind of where Ole Miss kind of went down after that in the second half.
Didn't hurt him against Arkansas because the score had already kind of been taken care of. But later on down the road, not having a serviceable running back was huge for Ole Miss down the stretch. Really hurt them against Florida.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: I'm going to ask you a big picture question. You know, Lane Kiffin and Sam Pittman came into these jobs in the same year. And you look back pre2020, they both had their years that they would love to forget. These two programs, they've had some years where they spiked and then gone back down. But you look over the course of maybe 25 years in Arkansas and Ole Miss, I think were very similar football programs. Why do you think in the last five, six years Ole Miss has gone so much more in one direction than Arkansas has?
[00:10:35] Speaker D: It feels like it's, it's been a buy in from the fan base, a buy in from this new nil era. Of course, that doesn't explain all the success early, but I think a lot of it has come in the nil area with Ole Miss being able to organize with the Grove Collective, working in concert with the university with head coach Lane Kiffin. I Think that's what's given Ole Miss a really nice little spark over the last, what, two or three years.
But prior to that, I think it was pretty much. I mean, I think Lane Kiffin's a good football coach. I mean, he gets the rap and, you know, he gets on Twitter slash X and he kind of goes crazy and he, you know, he's, he's been. Been featured on Tick Tock and that sort of thing. But I think at the end of the day, he's a really good football coach. And I think being able to surround him with, with people like Pete Golding, who he was able to acquire from, from Alabama, has been a great defensive coordinator for Ole miss. Charlie Weiss Jr. He and Charlie kind of work on calling the plays together, from what we understand. And it's been a really nice marriage between Lane Kiff and the Ole Miss fan base. You know, I don't know. You would know more than I, but it feels like there's an, an influx of enthusiasm with the Arkansas football program this year. Maybe it's because it's early, maybe it's because we were watching things from afar all summer, but it feels like an additional year into Bobby Petrino system is just going to, just to inject more enthusiasm into this offense into Taylor Green to see, you know, he ran the ball good last week in Arkansas State, thought he threw it really well.
Having kind of a nice little influx of receivers to go to the offensive line kind of took care of him. So I think just from the outside looking in, it feels like there's more support for Sam than I thought there would be, if that makes any sense. I felt like at the end of last year there would be no support at all for, for Sam Pittman. I don't think that's true, at least from an outsider perspective. And so it feels like the schedule setting up to where you look at this Arkansas schedule, there's some chances down the road, I think if he can get to six, get to a bowl game, maybe seven.
But to answer your question, I think a couple of things. I think Lane's really good. I think it's a great fit for him and for Ole Miss. But the nil piece of this has been a huge component because I know there's been some, some kind of. Some. Some situations with that nil, you know, collective there in, in Fayetteville and kind of get some things worked out. And look, I can't say enough about Keith Carter in the director of athletics at Ole Miss. And I'm not taking a Shot at Hunter, your check at all. But I know a lot of the problems that I hear that Arkansas has almost doesn't have.
It's an athletic director that's very vocal. It's out there. He's in the community.
He's kind of. Kind of, kind of the man's man in regards to you talk to anybody. And I think that's key for Ole Miss because Ole Miss and Arkansas are different. Different, you know, universities are different places. And so he's perfect for Ole Miss. I don't know that that would work everywhere, but Keith Carter has been an absolute godsend for this university as a player and then of course an administrator in the foundation and now as athletic director. He's an Arkansas guy, by the way, which I thought was interesting in all this. But yeah, he has been absolutely perfect. He and Jill and his family are absolute, you know, bedrocks in the Oxford community. That's been a lot of the success too is he and Dr. Boyce. Chancellor University went and got Lane Kiffin, kind of rolled the dice, but it is an absolute home run.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Keith Carter from Perryville, Arkansas, to your point, I think people here are excited about Arkansas's offense. I think they're apprehensive about the defense and I think that they feel like they're going to have to outscore, you know, like win a lot of shootouts to have a good season this year.
A lot of people thinking that this Ole Miss game is really kind of like the early gauge for this Arkansas team.
Brad, let's get you out of here on this. And this is a question real out of left field, so bear with me for a second. There's a lot of talk here and you're real familiar with Arkansas, you've got ties here about War Memorial this week.
Ole Miss, they've kind of had to go through this in the past and this is before you cover the team, but you know, pulling out of Jackson, pulling out of Memphis, a couple of places where they had strong ties and played games on a semi routine basis. Based on what you know about what happened at Ole Miss, can you tie any correlation between what happened there and what's potentially happening here with Arkansas and Little Rock and maybe how you think this might go?
[00:14:55] Speaker D: Yeah, you know, that's. That's a great question and that's something I take been paying a lot of attention to. The last. Well, no, not the last Ole Miss went to Little Rock in 19, I believe, and then.
Which is the only time I've ever been to a game at War Memorial and then of course, in Fayetteville, what were you just say? What, what were your thoughts, everybody?
Go ahead.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: What were your thoughts on War Memorial? I'm always interested to get people's thoughts who are not people from here who come in and maybe compare this to other stadiums they go to.
[00:15:29] Speaker D: It was very outdated at the time. I don't.
It was kind of raining that night. I don't know if you remember. It almost had to. I think they had a fake pun or something. Ole Miss wasn't very good. Arkansas wasn't either.
Ole Miss ended up winning the game, but I just remember it was, you know, it was really old. And I remember that it was raining and the press box was very stuffy and I couldn't see anything. I actually watched the second half outside because I the windows and this is not. I guess it's not their fault, but the windows were so fogged up, I couldn't see anything. And so, you know, I've heard the stories about the restroom facilities. I've talked to some people that have said through different networks and that sort of thing. A lot of the, the lines don't work, you know, correctly, whether it be television, radio, streaming, whatever.
So there are just some issues. I think there's, there's so many things that, that are revolved around this from a political standpoint. Being in the hub of, of. Of Little Rock, being there in the hub of the state.
What it looks like to me is, is this was once a great thing to do because of the people in eastern Arkansas, because could come to, to Little Rock, because from eastern Arkansas all the way to northwest Arkansas, it's, it's a hall.
But at the end of the day, that's where the university is in. The facility in Fayetteville is fantastic. I mean, I was blown away at how nice it was.
So I can see why folks, especially Arkansas fans would, would kind of shy away from playing a little Rob. But the location is really good in Little Rock. Tying it into Ole Miss. Ole Miss played its last game at Veterans Memorial, I think against VMI in 1996 or 1997. That was under coach Tommy Tilt. And so they elected to, to stop that because the stadium was. It just couldn't handle what it needed to handle from a, a press standpoint, from a. From a television standpoint. And the government was not going to put any, any money in it. At the time. I think the, the. The. The state owned the stadium very similar to, to War Memorial. I think the state owns it as well. And I saw the letter From Governor Sanders. I appreciate what she's doing. I like Governor Sanders a lot. But I don't know that she truly believes that that stadium is up to code to host a South Asian conference game. And so if she does, I encourage her to please go tour it because it wasn't from my standpoint. And so if they influx 500,000, maybe a million dollars into getting it up to code, maybe play a game every couple of years there. But my stance is as university is incredible. That's where they should play their home games. And I'm the same way with Ole Miss, Mississippi State, you know, they played games in Jackson as well back then. There was no television. I mean, there was. There was radio coverage and that was it. And in the central hub of Mississippi, which were a large population was living now they live in Columbus, they live in Tupelo, they live in northwest Mississippi, they live in Oxford and so Tupelo area. So they're all over the state. And it just from a geographic standpoint, it just didn't work like it used to. So I actually see where it would be a positive for the state of Arkansas was it's absolutely centrally located. But in order for them to continue to play there, I think they need to invest a substantial amount of money to get it up to code because quite frankly, mad, it's just not. I enjoyed the game. I enjoyed the nostalgia of it because I got to go to a place to where Miracle on Markham was. I got to go to a place to where the hit in which, let's see, Quinn Groby went left in 1989. He was hit by Chauncey Godwin at the goal line. Ole Miss won the game in 1990. Excuse me. For the first time, I think forever. Ron Dickerson, who would eventually coach with Houston Night at Arkansas, then came to Ole Miss. He was the running back on that play. So that as a kid I always watched those highlights. So being able to go back to a place like a War Memorial was really cool for me. I said the same thing about Legion Field, where Alabama played a lot of its away games. Obviously, all those games are on campus now, and that's not even UAB Stadium anymore. I love what I think Chuck Barrett and I may be wrong on this, but I talked or at least I heard something from someone that covers the program.
If I was wrong about Chuck, forgive me, but I think he said it best when he said those memories are incredible and they're wonderful to think about, but those are memories and it's okay to let them go and appreciate what we had, but now move on. And that's kind of where I am with those type stadiums. I can't envision Ole Miss ever going to Jackson. And unless the state of Arkansas decides to inject an influx of money and staffing into the stadium, Little Rock, I think it's time to move this to northwest Arkansas.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Do the Ole Miss people, do they miss Jackson?
[00:20:06] Speaker D: No, they don't.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: That's kind of what I think. And, you know, you probably make the same Alabama Legion Field like you said. I think all these programs that at some point they realized that it was in their best interest to leave these stadiums. Brad, we'll leave the. We'll end the conversation there. It was good talking to you this week.
[00:20:22] Speaker D: Thanks, Matt.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: All right, Brad Logan from Ole Miss when we come back. Christina Long will join me here in studio. But first, a word from Kendall King.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: At Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design.
We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King, Soapbox and Shopcart. Together, these brands represent a new focus in marketing design with individual attention to specific areas through our design expertise, supported by a team of talented professionals. Professionals, we showcase our best. We are Kendall King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are design.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: The Whole Hog Sports Daily Podcast is filmed today before a live studio audience. I've got my four year old in here who is on a sick day from school.
You know, they've got this whole thing where if you get sick one day, you can't come back the next day. You got to be 24. And so we've got, if you hear anything that resembles weird noises, that's what's going on over here. We just had a little moment where we were getting ready to go and I don't even know what that was.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: It sounded like babies crying. Like a lot of babies crying.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: I was telling you this story. Did you see the story about Hunter Renfro, the former Clemson receiver who the Panthers wanted to sign him a couple of weeks ago?
And they kept Dan Morgan, who's their gm, and somebody else from their front office. They kept calling him and he kept declining their calls. And finally it turned out that it was his daughter watching Bluey on his phone and she just kept hitting the X button because the call was overtaking Bluey.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Bluey time.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: I think every parent can relate with this.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: That's hilarious.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: So, yeah, we've got a little one over here watching us today.
Real quick. I promised Christina that I would not do too much governor speak today.
But from the files of bad ideas can indeed get worse.
She was on the Chuck and Bo show this morning and she actually floated the idea of this annual Arkansas, Arkansas State matchup being played on Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving weekend. She says that the attendance is always poor in Fayetteville on Thanksgiving weekend, which that's the truth.
She thinks that they should play Arkansas State on Thanksgiving weekend. There is not. By the way, I looked this up. There is not another Power four team in the country that plays a group of five, group of six team on the last weekend of the season. So you'd be asking an SEC team to go play a Sunbelt team on the same day that you've got the Iron bowl and Ohio State, Michigan and every other big rivalry that everybody looks forward to at the end of the season.
You know, if Arkansas ever wants to be taken seriously as a football program, they've got to step up and do what other programs do and not go down this weird path of playing at War Memorial Stadium and playing Arkansas State and certainly not playing Arkansas State on Thanksgiving weekend.
You know, in my opinion, this is the only thing I'll say about it.
I think they've got a football coach and an ad that together they pay them about $8 million a year to make decisions that they think are in the best interest of the football program.
Don't micromanage. Don't be a micromanager. Let them do the job that you have hired them to do.
And if that's playing Arkansas State, fine. If they think that's in their best interest. But I highly doubt, having talked to and or listened to both of them in different settings multiple times about this topic, about a state, about War Memorial Stadium, I highly doubt that these two are going to come to the conclusion that this is the best thing for Razorback football moving forward.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think anybody is. And it's like we talked about yesterday. Like, it's just. It is not what's in their best interest. You're right. If they, if they want to be taken seriously, they have to let these kind of outdated ideas go. They can't keep doing this.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: You can't run a business like you ran a business in 1980. You can't run a business like you ran a business in 2005. At some point, you've got to evolve and adapt with the times or you're going to get left behind.
And is playing a game at War Memorial Stadium the reason that Arkansas is not where they want to be in the sec? I don't think so. But does it contribute to them being behind some of the other teams? Of a financial standpoint, I think it does.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: I mean, the recruiting stuff like we talked about yesterday, that's also a big issue that I think kind of gets not overlooked. But I think that looking at it on its face, you wouldn't necessarily think about that. But it's. That's a big deal.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: You've almost got me monologuing.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: I know.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Better. Stop. Let's move on. Let's talk about Arkansas and Ole Miss this weekend. I think there's two things at play here when you talk about the revenge factor, and I think Sam Pittman tried to talk this down, or at least one of them down a little bit. But You've got the three players who left Arkansas 4 Ole Miss last offseason, and then you've got the absolute splattering that Ole Miss laid on the Razorbacks on their home field in November last year, 63 to 31. It was not as close as the final score would make it seem.
Jackson Dart kept throwing the ball over the top of Arkansas's head even in the fourth quarter.
This was a real beat down and Ole Miss needed to have, you know, we talked about this at the time. They needed to have this kind of statement performance at that point in the season last year. But because they were a borderline playoff team and if they could have finished the season with two losses, if you've got a 32 point road win in the SEC, that certainly looks good on your resume. Obviously they weren't able to, you know, to finish it. They had another loss in November that kept them out of the playoff. How much do you think that first off, last year's game against Ole Miss and the embarrassment that Arkansas had to have felt, granted, there's only like 20 players back from that team.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: But how much do you think that plays a factor for those who were on the field last year?
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Well, I think it's big and it's a lot of what Coach Pittman talked about yesterday. You know, somebody kind of asked him how much they were thinking about it and he said a lot. And, and he pointed out, he said, hey, a lot of guys that were on that got embarrassed by that game are not here anymore. The guys that were. That's certainly motivation for them. And he was somebody. I can't remember if Sam made this point or if a reporter kind of pointed this out in another question where they said, you know, hey, your staff pretty much was all here. So have, you know, Is it motivation for them? Have you talked to them about that? And he was like, yeah, we talked about it, you know, as we kind of turned the page. He said they talked about that on Sunday and you know, they, they like you said it was. He described it as embarrassing. It was embarrassing. Especially on their home field.
You know, they, they were coming off like kind of the high vibes of the, the beat down they put on Mississippi State on the road. Mississippi State, a very bad team last season, but they were coming off of that. Things were looking pretty good and then just immediate letdown in this home game. So, I mean, this is a very different. Well, I don't want to say very different personnel wise, very different Ole Miss team, especially offensively. A lot of the guys that, that gashed them last year are no longer here. But that's not to say that these guys can't do it too. And so I think that's something that they're definitely thinking about.
And, and he pointed it out and kept saying, you know, we, we can't let that happen again.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: I think the most important person is still at Ole Miss, which is their head coach, Lane Kiffin. And you know, really, with the exception of his first year there, the COVID year when they threw so many interceptions and maybe the year when Arkansas beat him up here in 22, where Ole Miss didn't get off to a good start, but they made it very interesting at the end of the game. I mean, his team seemed like they are really, really prepared for this game every year from an offensive standpoint.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Yeah, they really are. And I think, you know, that was a point that coach Pittman made yesterday was, hey, yes, the players are different for them as well as for us. But also Lane K, you know, it's still in Kevin's teams, it's still him, it's still his offenses. It's still, you know, the same idea. And they, they need to be, you know, prepared for that. And I think Arkansas has done. I remember last year we were talking about this, about how they've done better as they do pretty well as road underdogs.
So I think that's something that I'm interested in. I feel like I remember you pulling, so I wish I had the data in front of me, but I remember you pulling something about this for maybe late in the year about how they actually perform pretty well as road dogs. So, I mean, that's something. But this is the first opportunity for them to kind of do that this year. So that's another thing. It's a Night game. It's their first road game. It's their first SEC game. There's a lot kind of going on here.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: You know, going back to how Arkansas schedules, I would like to see a team prepare itself more for SEC play before it has to play an SEC game. And the way you do that is you schedule your cupcake week one, and then you schedule your big game week two. So, like, you know, this year you put Notre Dame week two, and then that gets you ready for SEC play.
Now, Ole Miss didn't do this either. They've still got their big, you know, non conference game upcoming, but what they did have was that they've got an SEC game the week before they play Arkansas. I feel like they're a lot more, potentially a lot more prepared for this game because they have faced an SEC team. And, you know, like we talked about yesterday, Arkansas has not seen that kind of, you know, athlete on the field yet.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's very true. And something that, as I've been kind of doing some research, trying to write some stories this week about this matchup, it's a lot harder to look at Arkansas and draw definitive conclusions because you still have that ability to say, okay, well, that was against an FCS team and a bad Sunbelt team. Okay, so now what with Ole Miss, you can now say, okay, you can throw out that first game, but now they have an SEC game that you can look at and you can look at that performance.
And so that helps a lot. And the Kentucky game, you know, was interesting. It was, it was closer than I maybe expected. Not from the Ole Miss side, but from the Kentucky. I thought Kentucky would not hold their own that well. I thought Kentucky was maybe going to be quite bad. And I don't think they're great, but, you know, I think they, they performed better than I thought that they would. But. So I think we can actually glean a little bit from their, their week.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Two game, the transfers. There's going to be a lot talked about, written about. Lane Kiffin said yesterday that Lucas might play in the game. I don't know if that's the exact words that he used, but that was the gist of what he said. I think that would surprise a lot of people based on what the severity of the injury was described as at the time that he had it over the summer.
Obviously he didn't play last week. Jalen Braxton didn't play for them last week, and then Patrick Kudis has been playing. But from the reports that we've been seeing, I Mean, this is. This has not been a good level of play that he's had at all.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: No, I mean, he got kind of specifically called out, not by name, but by position after their week one game. I. I think it was in one of the interceptions that Austin Simmons threw in that first game. When Kiffin was asked about it, you know, they were trying to figure out, you know, hey, is this a Simmons problem? Was this. And he was kind of saying, okay, that interception was not really on Simmons. It was kind of on the right guard. Who's the right guard? It's Patrick Kudis, you know, and. And that's happened a couple times. And, you know, I think people have kind of pointed out it feels like on. On teams where there's anxiety, especially offensive line anxiety, there's usually like, one guy that, like, the Twitter fans, like, decide is just the problem with the offensive line. And I think the early pick for them is Patrick Kudis, which is unfortunate for him.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: His PFF grades were really bad.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: They've been quite bad. Yeah, so there's that. The other two, like you said, haven't played. I kind of wonder if the has thing. This is totally speculation, but I kind of wonder if him kind of saying like, Luke has might play is kind of more to just like, juice up the vibes, not just not like, actually we're going to see him.
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Luke has. Do you think that this is just kind of a diversion?
[00:32:11] Speaker A: That's Kevin's trying to work this week? That's kind of what I think, and I don't know if it's. So I guess since we're talking injuries, I need to talk through my thoughts about Austin Simmons and the injury thing. I was like, either they are downplaying it and everybody's just buying it, or he's like, totally fine. And I can't figure it out because nobody's really, like, writing, like. So I watched Kiffin's Monday press conference. First of all, very short. It was like 15 minutes.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: I think he speaks. I think he has like some sort of Sunday afternoon.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: Yeah, he does a local orders, too, which I didn't. I could not find Any kind of, like, concrete update on Simmons from that? I haven't listened to it, but I didn't see. I searched for articles to see if anybody was like, he says he's gonna play for sure, or he says he's not, or he says he's not sure. I didn't find where he said anything about it except for what he said post game, which was that he could have gone back in. Listen to what he said yesterday. And somebody asked, like, what do you want to see out of Austin Simmons this weekend? And he just kind of talked about how he wants Simmons to do. And so it sounds like he's going to play, but then if you watch the injury, I don't know, it doesn't look great. Like, it's not ideal when he has to be helped off the field. It's kind of difficult to believe that he could have just come back in for the next series and they just decided not to. So I have no idea what to think about how hurt Austin Simmons might be. Sam Pittman said they are preparing for the other quarterback, too. They're kind of thinking about both, I guess. I don't feel like I'll be surprised either way. But, yeah, I mean, if we're really galaxy branding it, maybe he's saying Luke has my play to. Yeah.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Cause a diversion from galaxy branding.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: Galaxy braining.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Galaxy braining.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: I've never heard this.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Oh, this is a meme. I'll have to show you later.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: A meme.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: Okay. I do know it's not like new. It's not like a. This is not like, new hip slang that I'm using. It's like, old hip slang.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Okay, okay. I take. I'll take your word for this.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Like, have you never seen the meme of, like, it's like, somebody's head with, like. I'm gonna have to look it up.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, like the. The kind of. The crazy guy and it's got, like, rainbows shooting.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Like him. Like him.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Or like.
Like this. I don't know what this text is, but, like, these where it's like. It's like, tired, wired, inspired, kind of. But it's like.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah, nobody can see what you're showing us.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if you know, you know, if not, look up gal. I googled galaxy brain, and you'll find it.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Okay.
How big of a deal do you think it is that Monte Harrison's out?
[00:34:22] Speaker A: It's not a catastrophe. I mean, like, I hate it for him because I actually was really interested to see. See what he would be able to do. They hadn't used him a ton yet, but he'd been on the field and so I was kind of interested to see if he would be able to kind of do more in the offense. And it sucks that he's not gonna, it seems like have that chance this year. They said potentially out for the season. Not 100, sure, but a broken foot. That's pretty tough.
[00:34:46] Speaker D: I don't.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: I don't think this is. Yeah, I don't think this is like gonna break the offense because like I said, he hadn't. He was not a go to to begin with. It hurts your depth. Obviously it's one less, you know, one fewer capable receiver that you have. But I don't think they're short of options.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: If somebody else goes down, then it potentially becomes a little bit bigger of a deal.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Right. If somebody in front of him were to. That we would have. Yeah. Maybe more of an issue.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Are there any other injuries right now that you feel are concern?
[00:35:13] Speaker A: I don't think so. I'm not. Philip. People were asking us about Philip Lee and about Xavian. Sorry. Because they were both kind of like helped off. There's nothing going on there. At least what Pittman told us. Um, he said, Philip Lee's fine. Sorry. Came into post game. Usually that's the other thing with Simmons. Usually if they bring a player into post game even after they were like banged up on a play, that's usually means they're okay because they want to avoid all kinds of injury questions. They brought Simmons in for post game the other night and he talked and he said he was fine and whatever. So there's another thing.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: Well, maybe they just treat it more like a professional.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Right?
[00:35:41] Speaker D: That's true.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: That's very possible.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: And I've said this a number of times. I feel like there are a lot of people in college athletics right now who have not totally bought into the professionalism age, if you will, that we have entered.
And it's kind of a weird dynamic where you can see the ones who still kind of want to hold on to doing things the old way and you know, like. Like, I mean, I think. I don't know that locker rooms ought to be open necessarily.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: I understand.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: But I think that you ought to be able to talk to whoever you want to after a game. Like is the case in professional sports.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Clemson would bring in. Clemson has a good operation. They kind of every year they would kind of skip, scale it back a little bit. But their football sid came from the commanders. He's in the background of that Kirk Cousins video. The. Like viral? Yeah, he's in the background of that. He came from an NFL background.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: You like that?
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Yes, that one. So he's Clemson's football. I said he has been for a few years. So they run things a little bit more professional model. They would bring in a bunch of players post game. You could ask for kind of whoever, and you just bring them into a big room and you just do a scrum and you could just walk up to whoever. So it kind of is a sim, almost a simulated locker room access type of thing, but you get a big selection of players.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: I think if a college's mission, and I don't want to go too far down this path, but if a college's mission is to prepare players for their next step in life, okay, if you've got a quarterback or a receiver or defensive lineman, whoever, and their next step in life is going to be going to Dallas or going to Baltimore or going to New York or any of these giant media markets where you've got NFL teams, then you ought to run your operations in a way that is consistent with how they do their operations. So I don't know what Austin Simmons being there the other day made me think about all this, but it made me question.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: I was, you know, like I said, I feel like I'm maybe thinking too hard about the whole injury thing, but it made me think, okay, maybe he's. He's probably not that hurt if they brought him in post game, but because, like, Arkansas probably wouldn't have if he, you know, if. If this were Taylor Green and he was banged up and they didn't bring him in.
Okay, that might say something.
If they did bring him in, that would kind of indicate something to us because I feel like Arkansas is more the way they tend to run things they wouldn't really bring. Which is why with. Sorry, okay. He came into post game, he's probably.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Probably okay.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: And Pittman indicated yesterday that he's fine. And Philip Lee as well.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: And then David Okey sounds like probably.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: This week, after this week, you know, the, the timeline they had given us when the injury first happened was kind of like two or three weeks. So after this week, you know, we've been asking about him every week, but after this week, it'll kind of be like, okay, can we get an updated, you know, two or three more weeks? You know, what are we kind of thinking here? So, yeah, I don't expect that we'll see him this weekend.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: You can read all of Christina's
[email protected] you can read all of our coverage there. Hope that we'll see you on our website. Hope that we'll see you tomorrow on our podcast. Have a great day, everybody.
