Think Saturday night's Alabama-Ole Miss football game at Vaught-Hemingway might have a pass attempt or two?
Nick Saban's Crimson Tide and Lane Kiffin's Rebels have been outstanding aerially through two games, which is reflected by Alabama quarterback Mac Jones ranking first nationally in efficiency (222.1) and Ole Miss counterpart Matt Corral ranking third (211.9). The Rebels are averaging 381.5 passing yards a game to the Crimson Tide's 369.0, and Saban is quick to realize the significance of this test against his rebuilding secondary.
Alabama is coming off a 52-24 shellacking of Texas A&M that included Daniel Wright's 47-yard touchdown return midway through the second quarter that opened the floodgates to the rout, but the Aggies did amass 335 passing yards and three Kellen Mond scoring tosses.
"We would like to cover a little bit better in man-to-man," Saban said Monday afternoon. "We probably gave up three or four third-down conversions to their tight end. I think mental errors led to several explosive plays where we didn't have somebody covered, and it wasn't just the secondary sometimes. The linebackers made some mental errors as well, but we need to get better.
"I think we played better in this game than we did in the first game, so hopefully we will continue to make progress. This is the most explosive team that we've played against as far as them spreading us out with a lot of good skill players."
Alabama challenged the Aggies with a starting quintet of safeties Jordan Battle and Wright, cornerbacks Josh Jobe and Patrick Surtain, and with Malachi Moore at the "star" position.
Ole Miss has a Moore of its own with Elijah Moore, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound junior from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who certainly attracted attention with his costly urination gesture that helped cost the Rebels last season's Egg Bowl. Moore has certainly moved on from that incident, with his 159.5 receiving yards per game leading the nation.
"He's very quick, very explosive and very sudden," Saban said. "He's hard to tackle, even though he's not a great big guy. He's very well put together and is hard to cover, and it's going to be a matchup we've got to pay a lot of attention to."
Alabama's Jaylen Waddle is second in the SEC with 138.0 receiving yards per game, and Jones is coming off a stellar showing against Texas A&M in which he completed 20 of 27 passes (74.1%) for 435 yards and four touchdowns. The Southeastern Conference named Jones on Monday as its offensive player of the week.
Given that Alabama has scored 90 points through two games and Ole Miss 77, a lot of points are expected Saturday. Of course, plenty were put up last season when the Crimson Tide raced past the Rebels 59-31 in Tuscaloosa.
"I think this is probably the best team Coach Saban has had as far as being balanced all over and not having holes anywhere," Kiffin said. "Over the last three years, the average score in this matchup has been something like 62-13 or 62-14 or something, so we've got a great challenge on our hands."
Kiffin is a very memorable 0-1 against Saban, as his one Tennessee team in 2009 lost 12-10 to Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Slight exaggeration
When discussing this week's opponent, Saban said, "Ole Miss has been a team that has created lots of problems for us in the past and ruined a couple of seasons for us, so we certainly need to have the proper respect for this team."
The Rebels did, in fact, defeat Alabama 23-17 in 2014 and 43-37 in 2015, handing the Crimson Tide their only regular-season loss in each of those seasons. The two setbacks hardly ruined Alabama, however, as the 2014 Crimson Tide won the SEC and reached the inaugural College Football Playoff as the top seed, while the 2015 Tide captured both league and national championships.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.