2021 Ole Miss football projections on the HG

May 3

May 3 2021 Ole Miss football projections on the HG

Jake Wimberly

What’s to like:

Lot’s actually. Year one of the Lane Kiffin experiment in the oddest of years in 2020, with an all SEC schedule went really good.

The Rebs scored a ton of points, scared the daylights out of Alabama and Florida, won the Egg Bowl and carried a ton of momentum into 2021.

Ole Miss returns our top quarterback in the SEC for 2021 in Matt Corral, a ton of talent on the offensive side of the ball and folks are excited about Ole Miss football again.

The SEC West from 2-7 should be a meat grinder, so with the right breaks, Ole Miss could find itself at the upper half of the conference by the end of the year.

What’s not to like:

Defense - plain and simple. Yes the Rebs have met some needs it would seem in recruiting, and they play hard; but you have to shave at least a touchdown off the 38.3 points per game a year ago.

The offense can flat get it and Kiffin and Jeff Lebby are arguably the best one, two punch as play callers - but they have to have some breathing room that’s allowed by their defense.

As the Ole Miss defense goes, so goes the Rebs in 2021.

What does the Hourglass Say?

2021 Ole Miss pick: 7-5; 3-5 - Fourth in the SEC West

Four-year analytic percentage on Ole Miss = 97 percent

2021 Ole Miss Analytics –

Hour Glass National Recruiting Ranking (three-year metric): 24th – Inside our Realistic College Football Playoff bust line. Ole Miss does have the roster to get to the College Football Playoff. The biggest caveat is the division that they play in.

National Coaching Rank for Lane Kiffin on HG Scale: 18th (Lane Kiffin 2021 coaching value set at (10.0) – Average coaching value for 2021 set at 7.1. – Kiffin is considered just above average on our metric, but trending up.

ODE Analytics – NOTE: ODE is our offensive and defensive scoring efficiency ranking for each team. We use a two-year evaluation of each program.

Ole Miss ranks 42nd in the country in our 2021 ODE evaluation. Offensively they have a ranking of 36th in the country and defensively 48th in the country.

Quarterback Play: Ole Miss has the 6th - best quarterback situation in the country going into the season. Their value is set at (19.3). Our national average for average quarterback play is 9.10. Ole Miss has elite quarterback play.

Impact Ball Catcher Metric: Ranking the teams wide receiver play - and do they have quality, impact wide receivers. Ole Miss ranks 61st in the country.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Ole Miss football was on one leg when Lane Kiffin took over a year ago. Now, he has bred new life back into the program. Ole Miss football is fun again and the Rebs are a tough out each and every week.

Ole Miss will probably beat someone this year they shouldn’t, and drop a game they shouldn’t. It’s part of the building process; but the Rebs are trending up and expect a nice bowl game and fun season out of this team.

Projected Hour Glass W/L record: Games in red denote games that could be a one possession game or even a different outcome than projection.