An absurdly premature assessment of the 2011 Rebels.
? Previously On… The best Ole Miss fans can say for 2010 is that at least they didn't suffer: The season went straight for ritual seppuku when a three-touchdown lead against Jacksonville State melted into a horrific overtime collapse on opening day. Whatever strains of hope managed to stagger out of that grisly scene were put out of their misery two weeks later in a 28-14 flop at the hands of Vanderbilt, the Commodores' only conference win. The Rebels' subsequent victories over Fresno State and Kentucky were like involuntary spasms before the flatline took over through six consecutive SEC losses to close the season.
Cause of death: A fatal combination of the conference's most generous defense and most lopsided turnover margin, which left the Rebels yielding an unseemly 35 points per game. The only good news was that most non-Ole Miss fans were too caught up in the ongoing mascot saga to notice.
? The Big Change. Tyrone Nix's defense was such a wreck that it literally can't be any worse, and that's still true after he accounts for the exit of four of the top five tacklers, a key run stopper on the interior line and a vocal leader felled by an untimely ACL injury this spring. The front seven has been decimated by attrition; the back four is coming off as bad a season as any secondary in a "Big Six" conference. It has to get better.
| ?The Least You Should Know About... |
 Ole Miss |
| ?? In 2010 |
| 4-8 (1-7 SEC); Ended on a six-game conference losing streak.. |
| ?? Past Five Years |
| 2006-10: 29-33 (12-28 SEC); back-to-back Cotton Bowl wins in 2008-09. |
| ?? Five-Year Recruiting Rankings* |
| 2007-11: 27 ?�29 ? 18 ?�18 ?�19. |
| ?? Best Player |
 Brandon Bolden has always looked the part of a first-rate workhorse at 5-11, 220 pounds, and the numbers are starting to follow suit after his first season in a feature role. If he matches his junior production —�976 yards rushing, 344 receiving, 17 total touchdowns —�he'll leave as the school's all-time leader in rushing yards, all-purpose yards and touchdowns, knocking both Deuce McAllister and Dexter McCluster out of the books in the process. |
| ?? Best Year Ever |
 The Rebels' decade of dominance from 1952-63 was one high after another —�the period produced five SEC championships, seven Sugar Bowls, nine top-10 finishes and a pair of major national championship claims in 1960-61 —�but the heroes of 1959 are best remembered for their only low: A 7-3 Halloween night loss at No. 1 LSU ushered into immortality by Billy Cannon's Heisman-clinching punt return in the fourth quarter. Outside of Baton Rouge, though, the '59 Rebs were as dominant as any team in history, leading the nation in scoring while allowing a grand total of three touchdowns — including Cannon's — all season. Among their eight shutouts: A 21-0 revenge thrashing of LSU in the Sugar Bowl that lifted Ole Miss to No. 2 in the final AP poll, a perch matched by the 1960 squad but never exceeded. |
| ?? Best Case |
| Big backs churn out a consistent running game behind a veteran line; Mackey emerges as a playmaker along with one of the touted freshman receivers in the passing game; the secondary returns to the realm of the living. 8-4, Gator Bowl. |
| ?? Worst Case |
| Revolving door at quarterback; stagnant passing game allows defenses to load the box against the run; revamped front seven gets shoved around. 4-8, no bowl, Nutt faces a year of intense "hot seat" chatter. |
| * Based on Rivals' national rankings (top 50 only) |
Mixed with the infusion of new, untested blood on the defensive line is the slightly more seasoned presence defensive end Kentrell Lockett, who was just granted a sixth year of eligibility after missing almost all of 2010 with a knee injury. Lockett — often disguised as not-so-mild-mannered Twitter favorite CLARK_KENTrell — had a team-high 22 tackles for loss in 2008-09 and is considered a heart-and-soul kind of player, leadership-wise, bringing at least some semblance of hope to a unit that desperately needs it. The semblance: Incoming freshman C.J. Johnson, a five-star recruit expected to take over at strongside linebacker for injured D.T. Shackelford.
? Big Men On Campus. In this case, "big" is meant to be taken literally: Amid the broader failures, the offensive line was arguably (and improbably)�as good as any front in the SEC, yielding the fewest sacks in the conference while churning out the third-best ground attack. Four different players turned in at least one 100-yard rushing effort, also a league high.
This fall's edition will be unmatched for experience or girth: Of the seven guys back with some starting experience, four of them — Alex Washington (356 pounds), Jared Duke (346), Logan Clair (327) and Bobby Massie (325) — are listed at 325 pounds or heavier on the spring roster, and the "runt" of the starting five, center A.J. Hawkins, comes in at a mere 313. Add a couple 220-pound tailbacks in Brandon Bolden and Enrique Davis, and you've got a running game built for straight-ahead, downhill power.
? Open Casting. Whatever the Rebels are able to accomplish between the tackles will be godsend for the new quarterback. The four-way derby to replace Jeremiah Masoli has been thoroughly dominated this spring by Randall Mackey, a former juco transfer on the verge of becoming the first big payoff of Houston Nutt's "farm system" strategy for handling academically imperiled recruits. (He originally signed with Ole Miss shortly after Nutt's arrival in 2008 before a two-year detour at East Mississippi C.C., where he once accounted for 600 total yards and seven touchdowns in a 75-71 win for the state championship.) Mackey is a slightly slimmer, quicker version of Masoli —�short, a legitimate threat as a runner, a competent passer, accustomed to working from the shotgun —�and all signs in practice point to a smooth transition as long as Mackey keeps spitting out the right snap count.
But (also like Masoli) Mackey doesn't have the kind of arm that's going to keep safeties living in fear, and unlike Masoli, he doesn't have the benefit of a proven deep threat on the order of departing senior Markeith Summers, who averaged over 20 yards per catch last year and hauled in as many touchdown passes (6) as the rest of the wide receivers combined. Returnees Melvin Harris and Ja-Mes Logan plenty of playing time as underclassmen, but it will just as likely be up to a hyped bunch of incoming receivers —�Nikolas Brassell, Donte Moncfief and Tobias Singleton all come with a four-star tag from Rivals, as does "athlete" Cody Prewitt —�to deliver someone who can consistently stretch opposing secondaries.
? Overly optimistic spring narrative. If Mackey is the kind of playmaker the Rebels hope he is, the track record of the offensive line and running backs bodes well for keeping him in his comfort zone via a viable running game. Besides Brandon Bolden, there's size (Enrique Davis) and speed (Jeff Scott) in the backfield, and Mackey can create a little bit with his own legs, too. At last year's heavily ground-oriented pace, Ole Miss could very well lead the SEC in rushing and be back above 30 points per game — more than enough to fend off another long December at home.
? The Big Question: How flammable is this secondary? Last year's extremely green group was torched early and often, but that's not a habit under Nix —�the senior-laden 2009 secondary was 11th in the nation in pass efficiency D —�and three returning starters means this group isn't so green: Safety Damien Jackson and corners Charles Sawyer and Marcus Temple all have a season as starters under their belt. Again, they can't possibly be as bad.
In this case, though, even "vastly improved" doesn't equate to "good," especially in a division as ruthless as the SEC West. The Rebels gave up an astounding 11 points per game more than any of their division rivals last year, and thanks to the attrition in the front seven return fewer starters on defense than anyone in the conference except Auburn. They can make a huge dent in that margin —�cut in half, cut it by a full touchdown per game —�and it will still be too large to change the fact that the offense is going to have to outscore people.
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Other premature assessments (in alphabetical order): Arkansas. … Central Michigan. … Georgia Tech. … Iowa State. … Louisiana-Lafayette. … Marshall. … Nebraska. … Pittsburgh. … Nevada. … South Florida. … Syracuse. … Utah.
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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