Hugh Freeze is a total standup guy and a genuinely good man. He has a strong faith and it’s totally sincere. Ole Miss self imposed a reduction of 11 scholarships from 2015-2018, which is significant, and they’ll appear before the NCAA Infractions Committee at some point for somewhere around 18 violations, 11 in the football program. Six of them were Level 1, so that sounds serious. But Hugh’s handling it well and says it’s an extremely small minority of his staff and a player or two who were involved in it. One of them was Laremy Tunsil, who told Suzy Kolber of ESPN once he got drafted that he received $300 cash from an Ole Miss coach. I thought it was pretty obnoxious of Kolber to ask Tunsil a pointed question like that right after he shook Roger Goodell’s hand. Tunsil should have said no comment and let it go at that. Instead he didn’t think it through and made a not so smart decision to say that. His stepfather was a troublemaker. 

I know all of this stuff is against the rules, but it pales in comparison to what happened at Baylor. And Hugh Freeze did not have anything to do with it. I’m convinced of that. He’s a great guy and his players and the recruits love him. You can tell by hearing him talk that he’s a really terrific, salt of the earth man who a young high school football player would love to play for. He’s recruited outstandingly and it’s because the kids and their parents trust him to take care of them. I really, really like Hugh. He’s also a heckuva football coach. Honestly, I want it to go away because I like Hugh Freeze so much and I like Ole Miss, so hopefully the NCAA will decide that Ole Miss has done enough with their self imposed scholarship reductions and move on to more important issues like assaults on women, DUI’s, players having guns, drugs and encouraging players to promote people of all races to get along with each other.

Enough of that. I want to talk about Hugh Freeze, Will Muschamp and Les Miles’ and their respective football programs because that’s what this blog is about. Let’s talk football.

Ole Miss

Freeze has recruited exceptionally well at Ole Miss and while they lost some studs off their 10-3 team last year including Tunsil, a heckuva left tackle who will play and probably start for the Miami Dolphins this season, awesome wide receiver Laquon Treadwell, who was drafted in the first round by the Minnesota Vikings like Tunsil, and super defensive end Robert Nkemdiche, who was drafted in the first round by the Arizona Cardinals, they still have a lot of very good football players on this 2016 team. Ole Miss had some big wins last year including beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa, 43-37, knocking off Auburn at Auburn, 27-19, and beating LSU and Mississippi State; LSU, 38-17, at home and State on the road, 38-27. And after getting crushed in the Sugar Bowl in 2015 by TCU, they came back and crushed Oklahoma State, 48-20, in the 2016 Sugar Bowl. Hugh Freeze is doing a tremendous job.

Chad Kelly is back for his senior season at quarterback. Kelly completed 298-of-458 passes, 65%, for 4,042 yards, 31 sevens, and 13 ints last year in his first year under center as a transfer from Clemson. Freeze said Kelly started slow the first three games, but the last seven games of the season he was spectacular. Kelly said in print that he wanted to be the best quarterback in college football. I just saw the headline on ESPN, and I thought at first, be careful Chad. But after I thought about it some more, I thought it was awesome. What  big time college quarterback doesn’t want to be considered the best QB1 in the country. I’m cool with that. I love his passion. He could be. Of course Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson will make a very strong argument with that. But go for it Chad. He sure finished fantastically last season and had some big victories at the beginning of the season. So I’m all for somebody wanting to be the best in the country at their position. Hugh likes his backups too, which includes super five star true freshman Shea Patterson, the quarterback of the future for Hugh Freeze. 

He’s got stud tight end Evan Engram back. Engram caught 38 passes for 464 yards and two TDs. And while those stats aren’t staggering, he’s made a lot of hugely clutch plays for the Rebs. Quincy Adeboyejo is back at wide receiver and he caught 38 passes for 604 yards and 7 TDs last year. Damore’ea Stringfellow is back too. Stringfellow caught 36 passes for 503 yards and 5 sevens and is another exceptional target. They’ve got some good other vets and young ones who’ve come into the program.

The line looks solid with three returning starters and good depth. Freeze reeled off a litany of linemen, so they look to be in good shape there. On defense, they lost some guys, and Freeze said his biggest concern is at linebacker and noted he needs to keep recruiting well there, but he likes the guys he has, the d line has good players but need to stay healthy, and the secondary looks pretty capable. 

Ole Miss gets a real warm welcome to the season with a trip to Orlando to play Florida State Monday night, September 5th, @7 PM CT/8PM ET on ESPN. And while it’s called a “neutral site,” Freeze said, “I don’t know how you can call it neutral if you have to run a silent cadence on offense.” But Freeze said the good news is that a game like this gets his players laser focused. They’ll be ready to play September 5th. FSU is loaded this year, probably a top 3 team in the country when the polls come out, so this should be a classic.

Then the Rebs play Wofford at home, Alabama at home, Saturday, September 17th, at 2:30 PM CT/3:30 PM ET on CBS. Wow, what a start those first two of three are, and Wofford is a pretty good FCS team. Ole Miss then plays Georgia @ home the week after Bama, Then Memphis @ home. The Rebels lost to Memphis in a shocker last year on the road, so the Tigers will have the Rebels’ attention this year. Then Ole Miss is @ Arkansas, @ LSU, vs. Auburn, vs. Georgia Southern, @ A&M, @ Vandy, and home against State on November 26th.

This will be a really good team. The schedule is brutal, but I’ve been saying that all week. Ole MIss can win 8 or 9 for sure, 10 if things really go well and they stay pretty healthy. Freeze is a super coach with an excellent staff, so I expect another good year in Oxford and a possible New Year’s Six Bowl. Hopefully, they’ve done enough to satisfy the NCAA. Nothing else needs to happen to Freeze and his program, they’ve suffered enough in the public arena. Let’em coach and play football, and keep this marquee program going and don’t ruin it. Baylor is a team that needs to be punished severely, not Ole Miss.

LSU

Les Miles started off his media days comments by talking about teaching his players to be good citizens and role models to get relations in Baton Rouge and everywhere better. It was a good message, a serious message, but he spent too much time on it. I have to admit I lost focus despite it being such a good message because he was so long winded about it. He could have said it in a lot fewer words. Then he talked about his family and the only interesting thing out of that soliloquy was he went to Cleveland with his son in June to see game 6 of the finals with the Cavs and the Warriors. That was interesting, but he kept going on and on about it. That’s when I thought, “the pressure’s gotten to Les,  he’s lost it.” But then he started talking about his 2016 team and he was excellent when he did that.

He’s got an outstanding football team this year though last year was disappointing as LSU finished 9-3 after starting the season 7-0. However they did blast Texas Tech in the Texas Bowl, 56-27, so they gained a lot of momentum from the bowl game and are loaded with talent for 2016-17. They have a pretty good chance to win the conference. Leonard Fournette ran for 1,953 yards and 22 TDs, but in his biggest game against Alabama in Tuscaloosa, he laid an egg as the Bengal Tigers got dominated by Alabama, 30-16.  Fournette’s Heisman Trophy aspirations seemed to go down the tubes after that game. But he’s back and he’s still awesome, and will be majorly focused to have a stellar year. Leonard may very well be in the Big Apple in December possibly accepting the Heisman Trophy though Deshaun and Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey will have a big say in that too. Darrell Williams and Derrius Guice return to back up Fournette. They’re both studs. Les likes some of his young ones, too. Wide receiver is loaded led by the awesome pair of Travin Dural and Malachi Dupre. Both got hurt some last year, but Doral caught 28 passes for 533 and 3 sevens, and Dupre caught 43 for 698 and 6 sevens. Both struggled a little bit with injuries, but should have spectacular years with good quarterback play. John Diarse is another stud and there are some outstanding true freshmen. The line returns three of five starters with a lot of potential stars. The LSU o line is always physical and very good. Les spends a lot of time with them and he does a stellar job preparing them to play on Saturdays. Quarterback has to step up if the Bengal Tigers want to win the conference and be in the playoffs.  Brandon Jennings is back, and the junior has plenty of arm strength and talent, but hasn’t reached his full potential yet. He could do that this season. Brandon threw for 2,165 yards, 13 TDs and 6 ints last year. He’s mobile and has a chance to be special. But Purdue transfer Danny Elling is also in the mix. He played in 12 games at Purdue and threw for 2,400 yards and 16 TDs before transferring to LSU. Justin McMillan is another in the mix. So it looks like there will be good competition for the job in August with good options.

The defense looks pretty loaded. The marquee guys are outside linebacker Kendell Beckwith, who had 84 tackles last year, 10 for loss of 40 yards, and 3.5 sacks. Les expects Kendell to have a huge year. Cornerback Tre’Davious White who had 44 tackles, is the other stud leader on defense. White didn’t have any interceptions last year  but that was because nobody wanted to throw his way. He’s exceptional. There are a ton of stellar players for this team on defense. Dave Aranda comes to LSU from Wisconsin to take over the defense. He had massive success as defensive coordinator at Wisconsin with top 5 defenses nationally on a consistent basis. Don’t have this stat in front of me, but I’m 98 percent sure his defense was the number one scoring defense in the country last year. I know that’s not in the SEC, but still impressive. He’ll be really challenged this season. He takes over from  Kevin Steele’s who is now at Auburn as defensive coordinator. 

The specialists look fine.

This is an awesome team talent wise. LSU opens @ Lambeau Field in Green Bay to face the Wisconsin Badgers. This thing about LSU and Ole Miss playing at neutral sites to open the season is joke.  Not for Les, Hugh and their teams though. But it’s kind of a good thing. LSU will be ready. The Wisconsin game is Saturday, Sept. 3rd, at 2:30 PM CT/3:30 PM ET on ABC. The Bengal Tigers then host Jax State, they’re @home vs. Ms. State, @ Auburn, home vs,. Mizzou, @ Florida, home vs. Southern Miss, home vs Ole Miss, a week off, then the Crimson Tide comes to Death Valley for a Nov. 5th all but guaranteed night game, which will be more than a classic. Then they’re home vs. South Alabama, @ A&M, Thursday, Nov. 24th, to finish off the season, and then Atlanta’s next if they can survive and advance through that gauntlet. Nobody is feeling sorry for anybody in this conference though. Everybody in the conference has a gauntlet for a schedule. 

I like the Tigers of Baton Rouge to do really well this season. Fournette should have a huge year. If the quarterback comes through they could make it to Atlanta. The more I think about Alabama’s situation with a new QB and center, the more I think these Bengal Tigers have a real shot to beat Alabama and make it to Atlanta provided they can survive the rest of their incredibly difficult schedule. I’ll stick with the Crimson Tide, but it’s close. Heck the whole west is awesome. Like the Bengal Tigers to be a possible playoff team, and if not, certainly a New Year’s Six team. Like 10 to 11 wins with good health. 

South Carolina

I got mad at Will Muschamp when he left Auburn, but after hearing him talk yesterday,  Will’s forgiven. Will’s intense, but he’s also a good guy. He was giving the media some pretty funny barbs. Nothing critical, all funny. He’s got a lot of work to do, but you can say that for first year coaches Kirby Smart and Barry Odom, though Kirby has the most talent of the three.

Will is solid.  He hired Kurt Roper as his offensive coordinator. Roper didn’t have a lot of success at Florida with Muschamp, but I don’t think he got great quarterback play. He did outstanding things at Ole Miss and Duke with David Cutcliffe and had a really good season helping coach the offense for the Cleveland Browns last year. The awesome Connor Shaw, who was a heckuva quarterback for the Gamecocks when they were really playing well under Steve Spurrier, played for  the Browns last year and was effusive in his praise for the job Roper did there last year in his talk with Muschamp. In my opinion, Connor Shaw, Aaron Murray and A.J. McCarron are three guys who were total winners in college and still are, and these NFL teams are clueless if they don’t give these three guys a shot. But back to Roper. Good football coach.. Should do well at SC.

Travaris Robinson will coordinate the defense for Muschamp. T-Rob was at Auburn last year as secondary coach, and Muschamp is psyched for what T-Rob can do with the Gamecocks defense. Muschamp will put a huge stamp on the defense as well. He’s very good at that.

Another terrific move Will made was keeping Offensive line coach Shawn Elliott. Shawn took over as head coach  halfway through last year when Spurrier abruptly retired. Shawn held the team together, and is an outstanding offensive line coach. Will called him a good South Carolina man who loves it in Columbia and wants to coach at South Carolina.

 Will took his team to Fort Jackson, an army military base, to train and said it was an excellent experience for his players who really bonded at a base where 5 million army troops have trained through the years. Like that a lot.
 

He returned 42 scholarship players, 34 of whom are freshmen and sophomores. Returner Perry Orth,  four star true freshman Brandon McMillan, and four star true freshman Jake Bentley will compete for the starting quarterback job. Lorenzo Nunez, a talented athlete who played some quarterback last year, has moved mainly to wide receiver. There is some talent at the skilled positions, but not a ton yet, and some true freshmen will have to step up. Same with defense. There is talent, but some young guys will have to be ready to go on Thursday, Sept. 1st at Vandy. That’ll be a 7 PM CT/8 PM ET kickoff on ESPN.

Will said that he’s not waiting and using youth as an excuse on this team. Will said the goal is to “win now.” I like everything Will is saying. South Carolina has a chance to win six games. If Will does that, he’s done an outstanding job. If he does better than that, it  would be an exceptional coaching job. He’s recruiting well and I expect him to get the program back to where it was under Steve Spurrier from 2011-13, when the Gamecocks were winning 11 games routinely. Will’s the right man for the job.