Ole Miss Fall Camp Update: Questions About the Secondary Arise

Fall camp is in full swing for just about every program in the country. That means the season is right around the corner. For fans, that’s great news. For the teams themselves, all that means is that they’re running out of time to get fully prepared for the season.  And if Ole Miss’ fall camp is any indication, some questions may begin to arise as to whether the secondary is ready for the season.

In Oxford, we’ve grown accustomed to expecting the offense to be fine. Especially since Lane Kiffin arrived. However, the defense has largely been a different story. Kiffin’s hiring of Pete Golding as his defensive coordinator two years ago seems to have helped tremendously. Especially last season, when they finished near the top in almost every statistical category.

But the Rebels are losing over half of their defensive production from last year. And while the front seven looks like they may be ready to pick up where they left off, the secondary appears to be struggling a bit early in camp.

Questions With the Ole Miss Secondary

New Faces in the Rebel Secondary

A lot of the production lost for the Rebels comes from the secondary. Ole Miss’s best cornerback, Trey Amos, was drafted in the second round of this year’s NFL Draft. Another starter from last year’s squad, Jadon Canady, entered the transfer portal and landed at Oregon. Safety Key Lawrence also saw meaningful snaps last season as a Rebel. This year, he’s set to be a UCLA Bruin.

The good news is that Kiffin and Golding went out and regrouped in terms of the secondary. Guys like Clemson transfer Tavoy Feagin and LSU transfer Sage Ryan are expected to see a ton of snaps in their first season as Rebels. Keeping the Arkansas pipeline alive and well, Jaylon Braxton is another transfer corner that’s expected to make an impact in the defensive backfield.

With those transfers, as well as a few other new faces, it’s safe to say the secondary is going to look almost completely different from what it did a year ago.

Can the New Faces Adapt Quickly?

This is the biggest question coming out of the Rebel secondary for the upcoming season. There’s a lot of talent that has landed in Oxford, but none of that matters if they can’t adapt quickly to a new system. And with Golding as the defensive coordinator, that task could be even tougher than it already is.

While he’s well regarded as one of the country’s best defensive coordinators, that can also come with its pitfalls. The biggest being that he runs a more complex defensive scheme than most other coordinators. This was a relatively common complaint amongst some players while he was Alabama’s defensive coordinator under Nick Saban. During his time in Oxford, it appears that he’s attempted to simplify certain aspects of that scheme.

If they can ultimately adapt to the new system, the defense, especially the secondary, shouldn’t take too much of a step back from last year’s team. However, if some of the struggles continue, Ole Miss could find itself leaning heavily on the offense this season.

Possible Reasons For Early Secondary Struggles?

There could be a variety of reasons for the early camp struggles that seem to be happening in the defensive backfield. One could easily be the learning curve that comes with learning a new defensive scheme. For Ole Miss fans, the hope would be that that gets better over time.

Taking a more optimistic view, it could also be due to the talent that they’re seeing in practice every day. Most would agree that the Rebels are likely to have a top-5 to top-10 wide receiver room in the country this season. That being said, the optimistic view would be that they are facing better competition in practice than they’ll see in most games. So while they may struggle in practice, they could potentially succeed against lesser competition.

The more pessimistic option is that they just aren’t as good as they were projected to be. This is always the danger with recruiting in college sports. Some guys pan out, some guys don’t. It’s an extremely inexact science. Especially when it comes to transfers that haven’t seen a ton of playing time.

While there’s plenty of unknown as to the reason why, one thing is almost guaranteed. If Ole Miss wants to have similar success on the defensive side of the ball as they did last year, the secondary is going to have to improve over the next three weeks.