SEC Preview Ole Miss

Rebels no longer a league joke under Freeze

Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze looks for coaches and players after the game Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013, after Ole Miss beat Arkansas, 34-24, at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss.

FAYETTEVILLE -- South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier got off his usual blast of zingers at SEC media days, but none were directed at Ole Miss.

That shows the progress the Rebels are making under Coach Hugh Freeze in their move from the bottom of the conference to challenging for an SEC West championship.

Ole Miss glance

LAST SEASON 8-5, 3-5 (T5th) in SEC West

COACH Hugh Freeze (15-11 going into third season at Ole Miss, 45-18 in five seasons overall)

RETURNING STARTERS Offense 6, defense 9, special teams 1

KEY RETURNING PLAYERS QB Bo Wallace, WR Laquon Treadwell, FS Cody Prewitt, OT Laremy Tunsil

SEC TITLE SCENARIO The Rebels have made steady improvement under Hugh Freeze and have better depth on their roster along with the SEC’s most experienced quarterback in senior Bo Wallace. Having Alabama and Auburn at home should help, but Ole Miss still may not have enough firepower to win its first SEC West title.

Ole Miss schedule

DATE;OPP.;TIME

Aug. 28; Boise State^

Sept. 6; Vanderbilt+)

Sept. 13; Louisiana-Lafayette

Sept. 27; Memphis

Oct. 4; Alabama

Oct. 11; at Texas A&M

Oct. 18; Tennessee

Oct. 25; at LSU

Nov. 1; Auburn

Nov. 8; Presbyterian

Nov. 22; at Arkansas

Nov. 29; Mississippi State

  • SEC game

^ At Georgia Dome in Atlanta

  • At LP Stadium in Nashville, Tenn.

"One good thing about media days is Coach Spurrier isn't talking about Ole Miss as much, wanting to play us every year," Freeze said.

At the 2012 media days when Spurrier was asked about having an open date before playing Arkansas, he turned the answer into a shot at Ole Miss.

"You think I make the schedule?" Spurrier said. "If I made the schedule, Georgia would be playing LSU and we'd be playing Ole Miss."

Spurrier's comment didn't upset Freeze, who then was going into his first season at Ole Miss after leading Arkansas State to the Sun Belt title. The Rebels took a 14-game SEC losing streak into the 2012 season.

"Why blame Steve for saying that?" Freeze said last week. "I've said that all along, too. At that point, who wouldn't have wanted to play Ole Miss?"

Freeze said he and Spurrier talk often and have played golf together.

"I don't know that we've ever had just a direct conversation about that, but I didn't take it personally," Freeze said of Spurrier's comment two years ago. "I'm thrilled that I can call him one of my colleagues and friends in the coaching business."

Ole Miss was scheduled to play South Carolina in 2013, but that changed when the SEC expanded to 14 teams by adding Missouri and Texas A&M.

Now the Gamecocks and Rebels aren't scheduled to meet until 2018, and who knows if Spurrier, 69, will still be coaching then?

But maybe Freeze and Spurrier can meet in Atlanta in the SEC Championship Game in the next couple of seasons. It doesn't sound so far-fetched considering the Rebels have put together 7-6 and 8-5 records under Freeze -- including bowl victories over Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech -- and last season beat Texas and LSU.

Freeze said that when he took the Ole Miss job, he expected it to be three seasons before the Rebels went to a bowl game.

"To be very candid, the journey that we've been on, I think it's faster than I thought possible," he said. "But with the recruiting that our coaches have done and with those two successful seasons, there's no question the expectations have been raised."

The Rebels have the SEC's most experienced quarterback in senior Bo Wallace, who will be a three-year starter. After two seasons in the program, he ranks second on Ole Miss' career lists for total offense (7,085) and passing yards (6,340).

"There's no way we win two bowl games without him," Freeze said. "I think he's matured quite nicely in the way he leads the team, the way he goes about his business. He feels healthy and confident.

"He's at a point where he certainly has every avenue right now to step in and be one of the guys in this conference."

Wallace said at media days he was upset to be picked as the third-team quarterback on the All-SEC teams -- not behind Auburn's Nick Marshall, but behind Mississippi State's Dak Prescott -- and would use that perceived slight as extra motivation to hopefully lead the Rebels to their first SEC West title.

"Why can't we be the team to come out of the West and make some noise?" Wallace said. "We're not saying we're going to the national championship game right now. We're going to take it one game at a time. But why not us?"

The Rebels will get to play at least once this season in Atlanta, where they open against Boise State on Aug. 28.

"It's going to give us a chance to get thrown into the fire at the beginning of the season," Ole Miss senior safety Cody Prewitt said. "How we respond to that game will set the pace for the rest of the season."

Prewitt said he believes Wallace should have been voted by media as the first-team All-SEC quarterback.

"I think everybody is going to see that when the season starts," Prewitt said. "Bo's really progressed in the offseason, mentally as well as physically."

Freeze said this is the first season he's been at Ole Miss that the Rebels have the maximum 85 scholarship players, and Prewitt said the difference will be evident on the field in games against Alabama, Auburn and LSU.

"The thing they had over us was depth," Prewitt said. "They had a lot of depth, and their depth was quality. They had someone playing second-string that would be starting anywhere else.

"That's where we're trying to get as a program, and I think that's where we're very close to being."

Up next: Tennessee

Sports on 07/24/2014