Oklahoma @ Mississippi preview
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin isn't too worried about Oklahoma's offensive changes coming into the 18th-ranked Rebels' meeting with the Sooners on Saturday afternoon in Oxford, Miss.
"We've got a lot of stuff to work on ourselves, that we worked on during the bye," Kiffin said.
The Rebels have dropped two of their last three heading into the game, rushing for just 137.3 yards per contest.
"I feel like we have been out of rhythm for a little bit here," Kiffin said of his offense.
But while Ole Miss (5-2, 1-2 Southeastern Conference) has dipped on offense in three-point losses Kentucky and LSU, the Sooners have been struggling on that side of the ball all season.
After last week's 35-9 home loss to South Carolina, a team Ole Miss beat by 24 on the road in early October, Oklahoma coach Brent Venables fired offensive coordinator Seth Littrell. Tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley will take over playcalling duties and offensive analyst Kevin Johns will be co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
"It was an incredibly hard decision on many levels," Venables said Tuesday. "With a 10,000-foot lens, it was not so difficult. We were not playing winning football on that side of the ball and thought a change would be appropriate -- a change in leadership, a new voice, a new perspective a new lens, strategy, game-planning, sequencing, all of those things that go along with that position."
The Sooners enter this week ranked 128th nationally in total offense (out of 134 programs), 116th in passing offense and 114th in rushing offense.
"We've been an abomination on offense this year," Venables said.
Oklahoma (4-3, 1-3) also will turn to a new quarterback.
Quarterback Jackson Arnold will start against the Rebels, Venables announced earlier in the week, after taking over for Michael Hawkins Jr. early in last week's loss. He completed 18 of 36 passes for 225 yards and a touchdown.
Arnold started the first four games of the season before being benched in favor of Hawkins.
"Jackson stepped in and played pretty well," Venables said of Arnold's performance against the Gamecocks. "Made a lot of really good decisions in the game, took command right from the get-go, and again, several drops that would have made the day even better for him individually."
It certainly won't be easy for the Sooners to show improvement offensively. Ole Miss leads the country in fewest rushing yards allowed per game (66.6) and ranks second in points allowed (10.6).
Finley spent the 2020 season on Kiffin's staff as the tight ends coach and passing game coordinator before joining then-head coach Lincoln Riley's staff at Oklahoma.
"He didn't call plays here, and he's got a different situation there," Kiffin said. "I don't think that him having worked here before would help us at all in figuring out what he's going to do.
"With only a week to call plays, usually people just kind of add a play here or there but stay with the same system. You can't reinvent the system in six days."
The Rebels and Sooners have met just once before in the 1999 Independence Bowl, a game Ole Miss won 27-25.
--Field Level Media