Comparing Ole Miss and Missouri: Wide Receivers

Yesterday we compared Ole Miss and Missouri’s quarterbacks. We painfully chose to give Missouri the advantage at quarterback since they will have starter James Franklin back this week. But today we move on to possibly both teams strongest position. Wide receiver.

Missouri-Leading receivers

1) L’Damian Washington (36 receptions, 680 yards, 9 touchdowns)

2) Dorial Green-Beckham (40 receptions, 579 yards, 9 touchdowns)

3) Marcus Lucas (46 receptions, 531 yards, 2 touchdowns)

Missouri has been a downfield threat all season in the SEC. You could argue, and probably successfully, that they have the best wide receiver corps in the SEC. The only two teams that have anything like Missouri at wide receiver are Texas A&M and Ole Miss.

Just looking at the shear size of these receivers is frightening to any secondary. Just looking at their top 3 receiving leaders on the team, they average a height of 6’5 and weight of 216.7. That’s by far the largest in the SEC and possibly the country. There are NFL teams that would kill to average those numbers at receiver. But don’t let the size fool you into thinking that these guys aren’t fast, because they are. Very fast. You’ll almost certainly see Washington, Green-Beckham and Lucas all at the next level playing on Sundays because of their elite size and talent.

The Ole Miss secondary is going to have their hands full this weekend. They will have to play absolutely perfect in order to slow down these big and fast receivers of Missouri. So far, only South Carolina has been able to slow them down. But with the way the defense has been playing the last few weeks, it’s not out of the question to say the Rebels will be able to.

Ole Miss-Leading receivers

1) Donte Moncrief (44 receptions, 686 yards, 5 touchdowns)

2) Ja-Mes Logan (36 receptions, 497 yards, 2 touchdowns)

3) Laquon Treadwell (53 receptions, 477 yards, 5 touchdowns)

Ole Miss has several more receivers that aren’t listed who are huge impacts on the Rebel offense. But the top three have been the reason that Bo Wallace has been so efficient this season.

Donte Moncrief is the name that most defenses recognize and try to contain by putting a safety over the top of him behind initial coverage. He has still managed to gain nearly 700 yards receiving but a lot of those yards are due to other teams being forced to play man coverage on him because there’s talent at every other wide receiver position.

Ja-Mes Logan has had his best year as an Ole Miss Rebel gaining nearly 500 yards receiving. Up until this year, Logan has always been viewed as a possession receiver. While that may be true, he has also shown that he can turn on the jets and run away from defenders if he needs to (see 75 yard touchdown reception against Arkansas).

The big reason that Moncrief has been relieved of double coverage at times this season is because of highly recruited true freshman Laquon Treadwell. Ever since he stepped foot on campus, Treadwell has made a huge impact in the slot receiver position. In his first ever college game against Vanderbilt, he caught the ball nine times for 82 yards and also scored a 2-point conversion. It has been an amazing addition to the Rebel receiving corps and with Treadwell, the Rebels have been mentioned as having possibly the best receivers in the SEC.

The top three receiving Rebels aren’t nearly as big as the top three from Missouri are, averaging a height of 6’3 and weight of 208, but they are stronger possession receivers. Ole Miss also has more speed at the position. The Tiger secondary has been really good at forcing interceptions this season with 17. But they likely haven’t faced a better receiving corps than the Rebels have.

Verdict:

While Missouri has Ole Miss beaten with size by a pretty wide margin, the Rebels have the faster and stronger receivers. It’s a close call to make because Missouri has strong and fast receivers as well. But Ole Miss has played vastly superior competition and beaten better teams than Missouri this season. Ole Miss’ receivers have played against better secondaries than the Missouri receivers have and put up almost the exact same stats. Because of this, we are giving the advantage to Ole Miss at the receiver position today.

Advantage: Ole Miss

Recap:

Quarterbacks-Missouri

Wide Receivers-Ole Miss

Running Backs-Coming soon (Wednesday 11/20)

Defensive Line-Coming soon (Thursday 11/21)

Offensive Line-Coming soon (Friday 11/22)

–Justin Taylor, Associate Editor, HottyToddy.com

–You can email Justin at justin.taylor@hottytoddy.com