Ole Miss Tries to Keep Climbing | SEC 2013

[rebeljim]

It's a big year in Oxford, but it's not critical to improve the record by much.

It's become common knowledge around college football that the second year of a coach's tenure is when the rubber really hits the road.

Guys like Bob Stoops, Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer, and Gene Chizik won national championships in their second seasons at schools. Other coaches like Pete Carroll, Mark Richt, and Dan Hawkins (at Boise State, anyway) made leaps in their second years that sustained well into the future. Closer to home for Ole Miss, Dan Mullen went from 5-7 his first year to 9-4 the second at the School Down South.

Now, it's Hugh Freeze's second season in Oxford. By any conventional sportswriter's definition, the program has momentum. He improved the program's win column by five last season, making and winning a bowl after a two year gap. He landed a number of high profile recruits, including the nation's consensus top player in DE Robert Nkemdiche. The preseason consensus has the Rebels at fourth in the rough SEC West, and right now they're closer to LSU a spot ahead of them than Mississippi State a spot behind them.

Things are looking up at Ole Miss, but that doesn't mean uncertainty is gone from the program. Freeze's job in Year 1 looked good, but he still only has four seasons as a head coach under his belt (two of them in NAIA). So far so good, but that's not very far. It's always better to sign highly touted recruits than not, but you never know how much players will be able to do as a true freshman. For instance Florida signed a defensive end as the nation's consensus top recruit in 2010, and the Gators are still waiting for Ronald Powell to make an impact. Pitfalls are still out there for Ole Miss.

This season should probably be considered a success with a repeat of last year's bowl appearance and win. The schedule is set up for a slow start with a strong finish. Four of the Rebels' first five games are on the road, and the first half of the schedule includes Texas (away), Alabama (away), and Texas A&M. The second half only features only LSU as a likely loss. The range of the schedule essentially comes down to the two roughly tossup games against East opponents Vanderbilt and Missouri. Sweep them, and eight wins before December is entirely plausible. Drop them both, and suddenly winning the Egg Bowl in Starkville is necessary to go bowling.

In any event, this year is almost beside the point. Ole Miss really should try to make the postseason, if for no other reason than to get the extra bowl practice, but this year isn't the big one that counts. The program is building for the future, and it's probably going to take more than two seasons to fully dig out of the mess Houston Nutt left behind. There will be plenty of pundits out there declaring the season a disappointment if the team goes 6-6 again, but probably no one should listen to them.

In Oxford, it's less about this year and more about next year. And the year after. That's when the monster 2013 signing class should really pay its big dividends, and more potentially special classes in 2014 and 2015 can help it out. But 2013? It's gravy, as long as nothing curdles in the pot while its being made.

http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2013/7/22 ... g-sec-2013

[Titles 'R Us]

This is a very pessimistic assessment. And I don't think a 6-6 record should be acceptable. Nor do I think we will lose that many games. Also: the writer seems to be saying that all these other coaches (including Mullen) achieved spectacular results in their second season. But it would be foolhardy to expect Ole Miss to. BTW, the mess Nutt left behind disappeared the minute Freeze started coaching.

[JustBlues]

Every year counts. Every game counts. You can never convince me otherwise.

[bbqit]

Our schedule is set up for feast or famine. If we find a way to lose to vandy we are looking at several games in a row of teams better than vandy of which most are away games. If we have a winning record at mid oct its gonna be a special year.

[A10Rebel]

I think we play Texas at their house, Alabama, TAMU, LSU, and the rest of west which is probably the toughest side of a conference in all of D1 football. I would be disappointed if we regressed but a lot is hanging on Bo and if we go 7-5 or 6-6 I'm not going to go nibble on the barrel of a .38 either. #perspective.

[Titles 'R Us]

The assumption is that Texas, A & M, Alabama and LSU will all be better than they were last year. That may not be the case. Though 'Bama will have a lot of new faces on defense, any Saban-coached team will be tough. That said, they may not win the NC as everyone expects. As for A & M, I know that Manziel is a marked man. Every D-coordinator in the SEC has him in their sites. A & M is also missing a couple of key O-linemen and a running back that took the pressure off Manziel. Of all the abovementioned teams, I think A & M is the one most likely to fall far short of the hype. LSU lost something like nine starters to the draft, and we should have beaten them last year in Tiger Stadium. As for Texas, they will be tough, but you can count on one thing: Freeze, the staff and players have not forgotten the way Mack Brown ran up the score last year. We may not beat Texas, but this fall's game will not be a runaway like last time.

I don't see any Freeze-coached team backing away from any fight. I say we at least split the four games discussed here on our way to improving our win total by at least two games this fall.

[GtownRebel]

The assumption is that Texas, A & M, Alabama and LSU will all be better than they were last year. That may not be the case. Though 'Bama will have a lot of new faces on defense, any Saban-coached team will be tough. That said, they may not win the NC as everyone expects. As for A & M, I know that Manziel is a marked man. Every D-coordinator in the SEC has him in their sites. A & M is also missing a couple of key O-linemen and a running back that took the pressure off Manziel. Of all the abovementioned teams, I think A & M is the one most likely to fall far short of the hype. LSU lost something like nine starters to the draft, and we should have beaten them last year in Tiger Stadium. As for Texas, they will be tough, but you can count on one thing: Freeze, the staff and players have not forgotten the way Mack Brown ran up the score last year. We may not beat Texas, but this fall's game will not be a runaway like last time.

I don't see any Freeze-coached team backing away from any fight. I say we at least split the four games discussed here on our way to improving our win total by at least two games this fall.

Agree with spliting these 4 games. I think 8 wins is a good number. The first one is Vandy with a new QB. Don't be surprised if we sneak up on Bama though...we beat them in the second half last year, 7-6. They can't hang with a hurry up offense and we have 2 weeks to prepare for them again. I feel HF has Saban's number.

[wpdrebel]

I feel we will beat vandy by at least 10. But for the rest of the games to much like last year, save Texas. We will contend with them much better. I agree with Freeze though. We may have a better team but have a worse record.

[GtownRebel]

We will have better depth this year for sure.

[Titles 'R Us]

I feel we will beat vandy by at least 10. But for the rest of the games to much like last year, save Texas. We will contend with them much better. I agree with Freeze though. We may have a better team but have a worse record.

I think he is sandbagging. A worse record would mean no better than 5-7. Trust me. That won't happen.

[Rebchuck18]

Barring injury we should be favored in 8 games (3 of the non conference games and Vandy, auburn, arky, MSU and Missouri) so I don't want to hear how hard it will be to win 7.... Unless Bo or a couple o linemen get hurt.

[bbqit]

Barring injury we should be favored in 8 games (3 of the non conference games and Vandy, auburn, arky, MSU and Missouri) so I don't want to hear how hard it will be to win 7.... Unless Bo or a couple o linemen get hurt.

Your point is valid but due to our schedule it could be hard to get the team's spirit back up with a bad first half of the season record. A 1-6 start would hurt everybody's feelings and, however unlikely, it is possible. So much riding on that first game for a team not in the nc hunt is ridiculous.

[Titles 'R Us]

A 1-6 record would be possible only if Houston Nutt were still 'non-coaching.' It will not happen. This discussion of how tough the schedule is reminds me of last year when Arkansas and Auburn were ranked pre-season, and Ole Miss detractors and some fans alike were saying things like, "Ole Miss will be lucky to win 2 or 3 games."

In reality, other teams we played were lucky we didn't win 9.

[jrebel87]

Guys we absolutely cannot underestimate how hard it is going to be to win at Auburn . We haven't beaten then on the plains in a very long time and they will be much better then last year . On top of that, the Arkansas game will be difficult and beating msu in Starkville is NEVER guaranteed. As difficult as our schedule is we should all be happy with winning 7 regular season games and getting to a bowl. Lets not forget that we are thin at various positions and our defense and qb still have a long ways to go.

[lewindha]

Barring injury we should be favored in 8 games (3 of the non conference games and Vandy, auburn, arky, MSU and Missouri) so I don't want to hear how hard it will be to win 7.... Unless Bo or a couple o linemen get hurt.

Your point is valid but due to our schedule it could be hard to get the team's spirit back up with a bad first half of the season record. A 1-6 start would hurt everybody's feelings and, however unlikely, it is possible. So much riding on that first game for a team not in the nc hunt is ridiculous.

I disagree about the teams spirit based on last year. We suffered a butt-whoopin'(see Texas), and a couple of heart-wrenching losses(LSU and A&M). The team stuck together and still played hard and exceeded everyone's expectations(including probably Freeze's, which is why he's trying to temper enthusiasm this year)