Ole Miss’ JJ Pegues talks about the defense’s continued growth and the Rebels’ upcoming matchup against A&M
OXFORD, Miss. — When Pete Golding arrived in Oxford as the Ole Miss defensive coordinator in January, he may have seen his new players as kind of a jigsaw puzzle. After the Rebels have started the season with a 7-1 record, it seems those pieces are fitting together nicely — and one of the key ones is defensive lineman JJ Pegues.
Ole Miss is putting forth a stout defensive effort so far in 2023. The Rebels are out-gaining their opponents by over 100 yards a game and outscoring the opposition by 17 points per game.
Pegues has seen the stat sheet and knows some of the reasons for the defense getting better and better.
“I feel like we’ve improved so much. Just now understanding Coach (Pete) Golding’s philosophy and how he sees his defense — and I feel like we have a lot of talent,” Pegues explained.
Pegues, himself, is one of those talents. This season the Oxford native has accounted for 26 tackles, 13 of them unassisted. He also has 5.5 tackles for loss, three sacks and he has broken up a pair of passes. The defense has continued to improve throughout the first eight games this year.
“I feel like in the first game versus Mercer, we were just trying to put together the pieces. (There) was a lot of transfers coming in and just trying to get to know each other. If we put it all together, which we have, it’s going to (look) like when we played Arkansas. We shut down the run game and the pass game. Just this past week against Vanderbilt, just doing the small things and being able to communicate with Coach Golding.”
JJ Pegues
Pegues talked about the difference from the first half of the Rebels’ season to now.
“Just us locking in and believing the plan that (defensive line) Coach Joyner has given us. Joyner does a great job with the pass rush game,” Pegues explained. “Him and Coach Golding, Coach Golding gives him leeway to just call them, and I feel like we just all know who can go. We do different personnels and just trying to get different people in spots to go against maybe the weakest o-lineman. I feel like they do a great job with that,” he added.
Pegues also believes a year under his and some of his teammates’ belts has helped the Rebels to a Top 10 ranking in the coaches’ poll.
“We were all just new, like last year was my first year coming and you know just (quarterback Jaxson) Dart’s first year,” Pegues said. “So it was just new to us and we were just getting used to the system, but I feel now that we are here as leaders we can control the environment…we just try to keep one vision and that is 1-0 and the next opponent,” Pegues said.
Going 1-0 this week will be a challenge for Ole Miss as Texas A&M comes to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. The Aggies are 5-3 on the season, 3-2 in league play, and coming off a 30-17 win over South Carolina.
A&M boasts a lot of explosive talent and Pegues knows his defensive brothers are in for a fight Saturday.
“They got a lot of weapons,” Pegues said.
“The O-line is sound from center to guard, tackle and you know they got the number zero (Ainias Smith), the quick guy Evan Stewart. But like I said, we just got to worry about us and our defense and just being able to keep them one dimensional and not let them go around and just toss the ball around and run the ball.”
JJ Pegues on playing A&M’s offense
As for the Aggies’ defensive line? Well, former Ole Miss and current A&M defensive coordinator DJ Durkin has his unit ranked No. 1 in the nation in sacks per game at 4.12, a total of 33 on the year. But Ole Miss isn’t far behind. The Rebels are ranked No. 4 in the nation in sacks with an average of 3.75 per game, tallying 30 sacks on the season thus far.
There’s no question quality depth has been a key component of the defensive line’s success this season. Pegues is joined on the line by Cedric Johnson, Stephon Wynn and Jared Ivey. The Rebels are rotating in Isaac Ukwu, Akelo Stone, Jamond Gordon and Zxavian Harris, keeping the unit fresh and productive. Harris has missed the last two games for a medical reason; however, on Wednesday’s SEC Coaches Teleconference, Coach Kiffin indicated he expects Harris to be cleared to play against the Aggies.
Ole Miss and A&M kick off at 11 a.m. CT Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway. The game will be televised on ESPN.
(Feature image credit: Josh McCoy, Ole Miss)
Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.
He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.
A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.
Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.
He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.
Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.
