Ole Miss will work on tackling during the bye week
Top juco rebounder Mason Jr.’s route to LeMoyne-Owen involved sleeping in car, dollar menus and basketball
Tory Mason Jr. woke up inside his blue 2006 Dodge Charger parked behind his Chicago home. He gathered what money he could find, then scanned the McDonald's dollar menu for an item in his price range.
That's how a typical day began this summer for the nation's leading rebounder in junior college a year ago.
His childhood home served merely as a parking spot. Water damage forced the drywall to collapse on either side, and the ceiling was beginning to cave.
But he stuck to a routine. Each afternoon he attended classes at Richard J. Daley College, went to basketball practice and showered at the school before returning to his car.
If LeMoyne-Owen never offered Mason a scholarship to play basketball, he would still be doing the same, including sleeping in the same parking spot.
"It probably wasn't very safe," said Mason. "But it's what I had to do."
Mason, 23, was limited to playing just the 2013-14 season at Hibbing Community College in Minnesota because of academic reasons. He eventually returned
OXFORD — Through eight games, Auburn's offense has run 32 plays that have gone for 20 yards or longer. That's an average of exactly one per quarter.
Against Ole Miss last Saturday? Auburn had four such plays in the third quarter alone.
Big play defense has been a challenge for Ole Miss all season heading into its bye week. The Rebels rank No. 120 in the FBS (out of 130 teams) with 47 plays of 20 yards or longer allowed. This includes a staggering seven plays that have beaten Ole Miss for at least 50 yards, two of which came in that third quarter against Auburn.
"We didn't play Landshark defense," Ole Miss defensive coordinator Wesley McGriff said. "That kind of gave them the go-ahead. I always look at, the most important drive of the football game in my opinion is the first drive after halftime. We came out of the locker room and weren't able to get off the field that drive. They scored. They didn't score in the fourth quarter. But the third quarter was very pivotal. We allowed those two explosive plays and that's the thing that got us behind."
On the back of that explosive third quarter, Auburn expanded its lead from 10-6 to 31-9 in the span of 15 minutes. McGriff said the Tigers were able to gash his defense because of "leaky yardage," or plays where an Ole Miss defender was in position to make a tackle but simply didn't.
Missed tackles haunted the Rebels throughout that third quarter. On the two 50-yard plays, Ole Miss defenders missed four combined tackles, one of which was in the backfield, that could've slowed or stalled the Auburn offense.
McGriff attributed the leaky plays to a lack of physicality. Which was bizarre, given that McGriff said he thought his defense played physically the week prior versus Arkansas. As for how a team can lose its physical edge in the span of a week, McGriff was at a loss.
"I wish I had an answer to that," McGriff said. "The game has to be played physical. This is a violent game. It's a physical game. There's gonna be some contact. You wonder if the guys are going out and over-processing or over-thinking instead of just going out and relaxing and striking. I can't stand here and answer for that."
Ole Miss head coach Matt Luke feels the same way. Luke described the third quarter as the difference of the Auburn game and said the defense needs to learn to be more consistent in tackling. Which brings up the question of how do you teach players how to tackle. With the physical nature and safety concerns connected to football, teams don't practice full-contact every day during game weeks. There's just too much risk involved.
McGriff said it's his job to emphasize tackling in practice, even on days where his players aren't wearing full pads. But he also said he believes tackling is "90 percent desire," and a lot of issues relate back to that concept of mental toughness.
"It's just something you have to prepare your team to work on," McGriff said. "In order to be a good defense you have to be consistent in those areas. That's the art of coaching. We have to find an answer to see that these guys are playing consistent and tackling."