Like It Is

Loss may end up being biggest plus for Rebs

Mississippi head coach Hugh Freeze paces the sideline during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Presbyterian in Oxford, Miss., Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014. No. 12 Mississippi won 48-0. (AP Photo/Thomas Graning)

This should be the year to fear for Ole Miss.

While preseason pollsters have them finishing anywhere from third to fifth in the SEC West, the Rebels, whose official mascot is a black bear, could be the dog with the most bite in the fight.

Hugh Freeze returns 18 starters from a team that went 9-4 -- 9 on offense, 7 on defense and 2 from special teams -- and 12 of them are juniors from that 2013 recruiting class that raised eyebrows from coast to coast.

That year Freeze signed three 5-star players and nine 4-star players. All of the 5-star players start. Four of the 4-star players start, and two more are second-team players.

One of those 4-star starters is quarterback Ryan Buchanan, who was all out to hold off Chad Kelly in the spring.

Obviously improved quarterback play should elevate the Rebels, and that might not be too difficult considering Bo Wallace didn't always set the bar high.

He threw at least one interception in eight games last season, including two against the Arkansas Razorbacks in a 30-0 loss. Ole Miss had lost receiver Laquon Treadwell, another of those 5-star recruits, by then.

Kelly went on a mission trip with Freeze and other players to Haiti this spring, and it started as a gut check in leadership for him.

At Clemson he was dismissed from the team as a freshman for arguing with coaches, and after a successful junior-college career he was arrested after a fight outside a bar last December.

Kelly is the nephew of former NFL great Jim Kelly.

The bottom line is the question marks surrounding Ole Miss' quarterback position may be exaggerated. Freeze feels good enough about the situation that he said he may not name a starter until after the second game.

Plus, Freeze seems to improve as a head coach each year.

He's never had a losing season as a college head coach, and that's from a guy who at one time appeared to be a career high school coach. He coached football and girls basketball at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis from 1992 to 2004, but he lucked into Michael Oher, the offensive lineman of The Blind Side fame, and in 2005 was hired at Ole Miss.

At first he was athletic director for football external affairs for the Rebels, then spent two years as an assistant. After Ed Orgeron was fired as the head coach, Freeze interviewed to be Houston Nutt's offensive coordinator. Nutt didn't hire him, but obviously someone was impressed with the native of Oxford.

Freeze spent two years as head coach at Lambuth University and briefly served as an offensive coordinator at San Jose State before he was hired as offensive coordinator coach at Arkansas State. In 2011, he was promoted to head coach and led a very talented Red Wolves team to a 10-2 record before being hired by Ole Miss to replace Nutt.

He is 24-15 in three seasons at Ole Miss and has shown improvement every season.

Last season the Rebels started 7-0 before a heartbreaking 10-7 loss at LSU (Wallace was 14 of 33 for 176 yards and had 1 interception). The next week Treadwell was inches from the go-ahead touchdown with 90 seconds to play against Auburn but was tackled from behind, fumbled and suffered a broken leg and dislocated ankle.

Treadwell is reportedly 100 percent recovered and ready. So is Ole Miss, which has never played in the SEC Championship Game, but there isn't a coach in the SEC who will take the Rebels lightly.

Their schedule isn't the best. They play at Alabama and Auburn, have a stretch of 10 consecutive games without a break, and that 10th game is against the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Ole Miss looks to be improved this season, and they were really good last season until Treadwell was injured.

Sports on 08/05/2015