Five Things: Ole Miss

Well, no one's particularly looking forward to this recap, but as we wrote last week: "with the Bears heavy favorites to emerge victorious this week, below are not so much things that are required for them to win the game, per se -- instead, we've chosen some trends worth looking for as the team gets into their "B" out of conference opponent, and their likeliest win remaining."

Turns out losing a handful of these things -- some of them quite decisively -- is enough to turn a 20-0 lead into a last gasp, hang-on-to-your-hat kind of game.

1. The LT Position - L - Decisively, completely and totally dominated by Hamilton, Novil and Davis.

2. Trap Game - W - Only in the loosest sense of them actually winning.

3. Deng - Draw - Some good, some bad here. PFF consistently rates him at the bottom of the defense, particularly against the run.

4. Receivers - L - Tough for them to do more given the QB situation, but the offense could easily scheme a few more touches their way too. Didn't leave their mark at all.

5. Special Teams - W - Gregory Thomas nailed all his kicks. Beautiful return game. Yeah, it's a win.

2-2-1 (Bears 3-0 when they are at least .500 in 5 things?)

Season:

9-2-4

This week, the Bears are slight underdogs in Vegas, and severely disliked by the advanced metrics, which peg this game as a heavy Ole Miss lean -- 38% chance of victory. (These projections will be more robust next week, when last season's numbers are taken out of the algorithm.) Regardless, it's a tall test, and a possibly winnable one, if they...

1. Handle The Start Time

I wish we didn't have to worry about things like this, but the sample size is so small for west coast teams traveling east for the equivalent of a 9AM game, and it's almost always terrible for that traveling team. For Cal, one of these ended in disaster for the Bears (Maryland), and the other, a squeaker of a win (UNC, though it was an 11 point game until the final minute). So, let's put it like this -- they don't have to roar out of the gates and dominate, although that is preferable. Mostly, you just want to see that it's not a factor for them at all, so that the team plays on their own merit, and if it is a factor, then this category can still be a win if they buy enough time until everyone wakes up.

2. The Road Environment

UW has one of the loudest stadiums I've ever been in -- even after it was 60% empty -- and that's as someone who's tripped to DKR and Ohio State too. Despite reports of Ole Miss largely struggling with attendance and their fanbase being lukewarm about the start time, it's still a tough road game, and for a QB who is already somewhat skittish -- more on him in a second -- I can't imagine that it'll be a stadium looking to make it easy on him.

(It's hard to count UW as a traditional road win because of how weird the surrounding circumstances were around it, similar to the Oregon game that was played in a monsoon Jared's first year. Really, you're hoping that they travel well again, because there's a short week coming up right after.)

3. QB position

No, I don't know who starts. I think I've proven I'm no good at evaluating how coaches will see in these types of battles. That being said, it's possible Devon Modster is available this week, and rust or not, I can't imagine the Bears will give Garbers so long of a leash again to struggle as hard as he did. Whether Ole Miss -- a fairly anemic offense of their own -- can take advantage of this, it's hard to say, but considering the environment and the stakes, the Bears understand they need to act fast in case the offense stalls for 3.85 quarters again.

4. Limit explosive runs

The Bears are already good at this one. The one weakness that they have shown on defense is a propensity to give up that first 1-4 yards, before Evan Weaver gets to the ballcarrier in time, and they're up against an offense isn't that strong at staying on schedule either -- they're toward the bottom half of the country in both success rate and efficiency, but toward the top in explosiveness on the ground. The majority of the carries will go to senior tailback Scottie Phillips, but Matt Corral's got some elusiveness of his own, and backups Snoop Conner and Jerrion Ealy have shown some highlight reel speed in limited sample sizes so far.

5. The injured guys

It was about as bad as it could get last week: Cameron Goode, Ben Hawk Shrider, Christopher Brown Jr., Valentino Daltoso, and Tevin Paul. Supposedly all of them will be back this week, but I'm not so sure -- it's well within football norms to exaggerate injury timelines in an optimistic fashion, and I suppose that for my own sanity, I will project that they are all missing. That way, when I wake up on Saturday and some (or all) of them are playing, it can be the equivalent of a nice pastry or something.

But in case they all miss, that puts the following players in the spotlight:

-OLB Braxten Croteau/Ben Moos - in the Shrider/Paul spot as the big OLB

-OLB Nick Alftin - who just switched back to OLB this week and could be reasonably expected to see time, compared to say, Miles Owens or Ben Coleman who also made positional moves this week

-OLB Joey Ogunbanjo - in the Goode spot as the rush/space OLB. This is the spot I'm most comfortable with at the moment if the starter doesn't play.

-RBs Marcel Dancy and Alex Netherda - taking the majority of the carries if Brown doesn't play

-LT Henry Bazakas and Brandon Mello - had a rough go of it last week already, and Ole Miss' LB corps ranks 4th in the country in Havoc rate at 9.2%, led by ILB Jacquez Jones and OLB Charles Wiley (6.0 TFL between them). Stunts, twist game and looping around the way we did with Weaver to attack this person would not be out of the question.