Mississippi prepares for Auburn

OXFORD, Miss. — Brandon Bolden can recite it with the same unmistakable clarity as bedtime prayer or the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Three points of pressure ... eagle claw, forearm, rib cage. Keep the ball high and tight. Don't let it get away from your body."

It's the recipe for ball protection for Mississippi running backs.

"We work on it so much, it's second nature," says Bolden, the sophomore starting tailback who leads the team in rushing attempts with 84 gaining a team-high 426 yards without a fumble.

Through seven games, the 24th-ranked Rebels, who visit Auburn on Saturday, have run the football 261 times without losing a fumble. They have lost six fumbles on the season, just one by a running back. That was Cordera Eason, whose bobble in the second quarter against Arkansas came after a 16-yard gain on a screen pass.

Ole Miss had driven from its 35, and the turnover occurred at the Arkansas 26. The Rebels led 14-0 at the time and could have opened up a three-touchdown lead.

"That hurt. We'd have gotten at least three and maybe seven the way that drive was going," Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said.

Three of the six surrendered fumbles have been on punt returns. Another came on a sack of quarterback Jevan Snead at South Carolina, and another by strong safety Johnny Brown after an interception at Memphis.

Snead's fumble at the Ole Miss 25 gave South Carolina a short field, resulting in the Gamecocks' only touchdown in a 16-10 Ole Miss loss.

"Every time we touch the ball, the one thing we can control is we can take care of the football," running backs coach Derrick Nix said. "Sometimes you have to realize when a play is dead, secure the ball and live to fight another down. We can at least punt it, flip the field and get in the other team's territory."

Nix's goal of perfection for his unit is still in play to some degree. Though Eason fumbled after a screen pass, and McCluster fumbled on a punt return, the Rebels are still fumble-free from the line of scrimmage.

It's not a statistic you'd expect to see for a team with a minus-.71 turnover ratio, ranking 11th in the SEC and 96th of 120 Football Bowl Sub-division teams.

Ole Miss has turned the ball over 17 times this season, 11 of them on Snead interceptions. The Rebels defeated Arkansas 30-17 in spite of losing 3-0 in turnover margin.

The interceptions — often a result of decision-making — are an area in which Nutt believes Snead is improving.

Similar improvement was necessary in the middle of last season when McCluster was struggling to hold on to the ball. Ironically, his best ball protection came after he was moved to tailback.

"When I'd fumble the ball, coach Nutt came to me and said, 'I'm going to give it to you again.' That allowed me to not lose confidence in myself and to get back to playing the game," McCluster said.

Nix gets everybody involved in practicing ball-protection including managers and graduate assistant coaches.

Backs are beaten with pads while they run through contact drills, and in scrimmage work, defensive players are encouraged to try to strip the ball.

"If you can't take care of the ball you can't play here," Nix said.

Bolden isn't the only back to commit the group's mantra to memory. The "eagle claw" refers to the fingers positioned over the nose of the football. The ball makes constant contact with the forearm, and it's tucked into the arm pit.

"It's something we work on every single day," Nix said, "taking handoffs, locking the ball away, looking the ball in, putting it into the correct arm, the near sideline. Then in traffic it's two hands to cover it up.

"Every single day."