The Ole Miss Rebels are sitting at 2-0 on the young season. They also lead the SEC, as they’re the only team with a conference win. That win came this past weekend on the road against Kentucky. Everything seems like it should be going pretty well in Oxford. And to a large degree, it is. However, several areas must improve if they want to be considered a legitimate contender for the College Football Playoff. The number one area of improvement would, without a doubt, have to be quarterback Austin Simmons.
If you simply look at numbers, it’s likely you could miss some of the issues we’ve seen with Simmons through two weeks. His passing yardage is solid. He’s thrown for three touchdowns. He even has 61 yards rushing through two games. Sure, he has four interceptions, which certainly isn’t good. But none of that tells the whole story.
So what has he done well, and what must be improved from Simmons for the Rebels to be viewed as a legitimate contender?
The Good and Bad of Austin Simmons
The Good
There’s been plenty of good from Simmons so far through two games. Starting off, he has a huge arm. There’s no question he can make any throw needed. Along those same lines, he’s been pretty accurate so far, as well. Against Kentucky, he missed a few receivers that he should’ve hit. If there is a bright side to that, it was that the misses were virtually all high. A quarterback playing in his first road game, against an SEC opponent, it’s easy to chalk that one up to being too excited. That’s especially true since a lot of the overthrows came early on. Once he settled down a bit, the accuracy started to look more like what we all expected.
The other real positive is his mobility. Now, he’s not Jaxson Dart by any means. Over the past few years, Ole Miss fans have been accustomed to seeing a ton of designed quarterback runs. A lot of that was because Dart was a bigger guy who could withstand some of those hits. Simmons is thinner. He’ll still see some designed carries, but not what we’re used to seeing. That being said, he is mobile enough to extend the play and bail out of the pocket if needed. Through two weeks, he’s shown a bit of that escapability at times.
The Bad
While there’s been a lot of good, there’s also been plenty of bad. First off, there are the turnovers. In two games, he’s already thrown four interceptions. In the opener against Georgia State, he threw two. This past weekend at Kentucky, he threw two more. It is worth pointing out that his first one against Georgia State wasn’t really his fault, apart from not feeling pressure from his blindside. He was hit as he released the pass, allowing the ball to flutter out of his hand. However, the second one was extremely bad. Throwing the ball over the middle late led to an easy interception for Panther safety Jordan Huff. Against Kentucky, both were bad.
Most importantly, they’ve generally all stemmed from the same issue. Panicking under pressure. The first against Kentucky came off a bad snap. Once he picked up the snap, it was obvious he was already panicked. Instead of taking a second to survey the field, he made a horrible decision in lobbing a ball towards the sideline in the direction of Cayden Lee. An underthrow led to an easy interception. The second came from pressure up the middle. Simmons, instead of trying to escape, threw into man coverage down the middle, with a deep safety waiting. Because of the pressure, the throw was rushed, leading to an overthrow. Another easy interception.
With a shaky offensive line, in SEC play, he’s going to face pressure. He simply has to be more poised and avoid panicking, which oftentimes leads to horrible decisions.
Will Simmons Improve With Time?
The good news is that Simmons is still young. He’s only started two games. The decision-making should get better with more time and experience. The easy fix would be for Lane Kiffin and Charlie Weis Jr to explain that it’s okay to throw the ball away under pressure. Simply live to play another down. That one piece of advice would fix roughly 85% of the bad that we’ve seen from Simmons so far this year.
But the improvements must come pretty soon. Against two mediocre opponents, the mistakes haven’t cost the Rebels. When taking on better opponents, these mistakes will almost certainly come back to haunt them.
Main Image: Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports
