McCready: With Tide in town, Rebels go 11 (seconds) and whoa

OXFORD — For11 seconds Saturday night, Ole Miss thrilled its fan base.

Eleven seconds.

Insert your favorite “That’s what she said” joke here.

But seriously, if you were hoping that first-half performance against Southern Illinois was a one-off anomaly, you now know it wasn’t.

Look, No. 1 Alabama is an offensive juggernaut, a talented collection of four- and five-star prospects who are well-coached and have elite chemistry. Still, the Crimson Tide’s 62-7 blowout of Ole Miss Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium can’t and shouldn’t be spun.

Ole Miss has a talent issue on defense. There simply aren’t enough talented Southeastern Conference-caliber players on that side of the football. There’s no fixing that this fall.

The scheme appears to be flawed as well. Linebackers are out of position. Defensive backs aren’t looking back for the football on pass plays. There’s no pass rush. If that doesn’t get fixed in the coming weeks, there’s a decent chance this season becomes a complete embarrassment.

This Ole Miss team was never beating this Alabama team. No way. The talent gap is simply too wide.

However, in the first half Saturday, before the Crimson Tide completely lost interest, Alabama rolled up 418 yards of total offense. A week after giving up 386 yards to Southern Illinois in the first half a week ago, the Rebels’ defense actually did worse.

In a half in which Ole Miss forced a turnover and Alabama missed a field goal, the Crimson Tide still scored 49 points. Alabama had nine offensive possessions before halftime and scored seven touchdowns.

That’s unacceptable, or at least it should be. The scary thing for Ole Miss the rest of this season is there might not be a lot that can be done to rectify the situation.

In the first half, Alabama rushed 20 times for 170 yards. That’s 8.5 yards per carry. Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts combined to complete 16 of 21 passes for 248 yards in the first 30 minutes.

There will be spin from the second half Saturday night after Ole Miss held Alabama to 98 yards of offense. There was spin a week ago when Ole Miss held Southern Illinois to three points in the final 30 minutes. It’s up to you to decide if you believe Ole Miss’ second half against Alabama was something to build on or if you think the talk about not quitting and making plays is just platitudinal fluff.

Through three games, Ole Miss has allowed 1,631 yards of total offense. There’s no spinning that. There’s no real reason to believe a defensive catharsis is imminent.

I’m on record here: The results of a six-year NCAA investigation, combined with Hugh Freeze’s change in recruiting philosophy, depleted this roster of impact defensive players. The pressure on Ole Miss’ offense to win against anyone is immense. After Jordan Ta’amu connected with D.K. Metcalf on a 75-yard touchdown pass in the game’s first 11 seconds, Alabama put the clamps on the Rebels.

Ole Miss managed just 248 yards of offense Saturday. Take away the Metcalf touchdown, and Alabama limited the Rebels to 173 yards on 58 plays.

Don’t overreact; Ole Miss has winnable games left, starting with next Saturday against Kent State. ULM, Arkansas, maybe South Carolina and possibly Vanderbilt spring to mind as games the Rebels could win. Make no mistake, however, Ole Miss’ total lack of defensive prowess make those games losable, too. Ole Miss’ offense can be stopped. Alabama proved that. When it even gets slowed, the results are disastrous.

Teams have plenty of film to look at now. Opposing offenses are going to look to get Ole Miss’ linebackers in space. There’s evidence they’re soft there. Opposing quarterbacks are going to look for one-on-ones against the Rebels’ cornerbacks. Power-oriented teams are going to be confident in their ability to gash Ole Miss at the line of scrimmage.

On Saturday, Alabama stopped scoring because it decided to stop scoring. Ole Miss wasn’t going to stop Tagovailoa, Damien Harris and Jerry Jeudy.

Here’s the thing: Recruiting is paramount, and getting elite defensive players to come to Oxford right now is a difficult sell. Can the Rebels convince prospects like Nakobe Dean, who didn’t come to Oxford Saturday, to cast their lot with Ole Miss? Atmospheres like Saturday, when Vaught-Hemingway emptied out at halftime, or the one coming next Saturday morning won’t help.

Bottom line: Matt Luke has a very hard job in front of him. He knows it.

If fans didn’t know it before Saturday night, they do now.