OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss offensive lineman Reese McIntyre wasn’t going to pin any of the Rebels’ problems on injuries. That’s almost a taboo subject for folks to talk about unless some coach is looking for an easy excuse.
Even though Ole Miss has created a little more drama for quarterback Jaxson Dart in the pocket lately (11 sacks in last three games), some of the walking wounded are getting back. Development of what was a group deeper than years past is also making a difference.
“It helps because it pushes everybody to be your best because you got eight-nine guys who can play,” McIntyre said Monday. “It makes you go harder because you got eight guys in the room who can all play and all played a lot of ball. It helps all of us out.”
McIntyre was not supposed to be the team’s primary starting center going into August practices. Injuries to Caleb Warren and Gerquan Scott got him where he has had to start all seven games.
For a guy with just 47 appearances and four starts previously, he got his chance. He’s trying to take advantage of that.
“When stuff gets hard, just fall back on your training and trust what you’ve been taught,” he said. “Just taking it one play at a time and flushing the negative plays and going to the next play, going to the next play. Honing in on technique, hand placement, footwork, stuff like that.”
After giving up six sacks in the overtime loss at LSU, Rebels coach Lane Kiffin did about the only thing he could do later — move forward.He knew he had a bye week coming up.
“You’ve just got to flush it and go,” McIntyre said. “Oklahoma is coming in, so it will be a good challenge for us this week. Just take your mind off it (games lost) and focus on Oklahoma. They got a good team, we got a good challenge ahead of us.”
Times have gotten a little tougher on the Sooners in their first SEC season than expected. It has led to the firing of offensive coordinator Seth Littrell over the weekend after a lackluster performance.
Kickoff for Ole Miss against Oklahoma on Saturday is 11 a.m. and will be on ESPN. Fans can also listen to the game on The Ole Miss Radio Network.
