Ole Miss's Scissors & Sails Concepts

Ole Miss finished 2nd in the nation in passing yards in 2024, throwing for over 4,000 yards. A big chunk of that came from just a few core concepts. In this article, we’re going to dig into two of them. Call these route combos whatever you want, I’ve given them names here for the sake of clarity.

Scissors Route Concept

Ole Miss loves running their scissors concepts out of stacked or near-stacked alignments. In this example, they do it from a tight end wing look. It’s tough to say exactly what coverage Arkansas is in, it’s a bust, but the pressure created by the scissors concept helps force that mistake. Both the boundary corner and safety jump the corner route, leaving the post wide open. This could be a cover 3 look, with the defense matching routes to the field and zoning the boundary. If so, the field safety gets caught staring down the quarterback instead of working back to the post. It could also be a Cover 2 look. Either way, it’s a perfect red zone call, and the Rebels cash it in for six.