re: Everybody is banging on the O and Leavit.

I think we had a terrible gameplan for the first half. The last TD they had before the half illustrated it perfectly. Dropped 8 into zone coverage and still gave up a strike down the middle. We were worried about Trinidad running, which I get, but (1) he's also a great passer when you give him time to read a zone, and (2) we're evidently not a good zone defense team to begin with.

We brought more pressure in the second half and it immediately fixed our problems. I'm not saying this as a moral victory but to diagnose a problem - we outscored them 17-8 in the second half. It must have been pretty obvious to the defensive staff that this new gameplan wasn't working, because we immediately went back to what we'd been doing the first 2 games, and it worked like it needed to.

TBH this felt like the type of game the Ole Miss fans warned us about. Big matchup, Lane and the coaching staff put a ton of effort into a gameplan tailored for the opponent, but it drifts too far away from what we've already been doing well and ends up feeling cute instead of sharp.

I think people are more worried about Sam and the offense because he's a 4th year player and 3rd year starter, but he still looks an awful lot like a 1st year, 1-read-and-run QB. I think the calmer heads pointing out that he's only been practicing and learning Lane's system for a couple months are right in the long run, but for this year I think Sam's too limited to take us deep in the playoffs. I love his athleticism, but he's not so good that he can just casually improvise against SEC defenses like Johnny Manziel. Maybe he's got potential to develop more disciplined reading of defenses and more precise passing, but I worry he's not going to reach that potential in time for this season. Our receiving corps is low key not very good if TreyDez is out for a while too...

Yes, great analysis.

The D we thought we had didn’t function until the third quarter and then with all the mo on our side, we went back to the soft stuff.

The pressure was on Ole Miss when we tied things up. Their D was wearing down. Lacey was out. Our D was rested. We hit Ole Miss with a blitz package there, and we had a great chance.

No, it wasn’t a sure thing. Chambliss is too good to not know that, but like you said; we should have gone down swinging.

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That’s an understatement. It legit looks like he cannot drop back to pass even in a clean pocket without wanting to pull it down and run. Much less be able to look past his first read.

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Whoever down voted you didn't watch the game.