By james art The Ole Miss Rebels took advantage of last week’s open date by nursing injuries and doing some self-evaluation in preparation for this week’s game against the Oklahoma Sooners.
Sophomore wide receiver Cayden Lee has been part of that soul-searching on the offensive side of the ball, and he found a week of rest to be of great use after the Rebels’ heartbreaking 29-26 overtime loss to LSU the Saturday before. Much of last week was focused on correcting mistakes, according to Lee, some mishaps that Ole Miss hopes to avoid for the rest of the schedule.
“It was definitely good to go back and look at things from the beginning of the season, what we did well and what we can improve on,” Lee said at a news conference on Tuesday. “Just to not do the things we did poorly in the last half of the season.”
One player who struggled in the LSU loss was quarterback Jaxson Dart. Dart was visibly upset by the media presence after the game that night in Baton Rouge, but Lee believes his signal caller and the team as a whole closed the book on that tough loss.
Now they’re looking at the Sooners.
“[Dart has] I definitely shook it off,” Lee said. “Bye, the week gave us some time to think about it collectively and now we’re focused on Oklahoma. We cannot go back and fix what was in the past. We can only fix what is going forward. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”
Ole Miss is currently favored in Saturday’s game by 20.5 points as the Sooners come on the heels of some struggles. Oklahoma fired their offensive coordinator over the weekend, and they made another quarterback change, returning the preseason starter to Jackson Arnold.
Still, the Sooners have a talented defense and their head coach Brent Venables specializes on that side of the ball. The Rebels are preparing for a real test this weekend.
“Coach Venables is a very defensive minded coach,” Lee said. “They’re a good challenge, but I feel like if we keep training well and doing the things we need to do, we’ll get the job done.”
Saturday’s kickoff between Ole Miss and Oklahoma is set for 11 a.m. CT at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford. The game will be televised on ESPN.
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