Ole Miss looks ready to swim with sharks
Rebels have talent, star QB in making and confidence to make SEC splash
John Raoux / ASSOCIATED PRESSMississippi Jevan Snead throws under pressure from the Florida defense last season. Snead and the Rebels could be one of the game's surprise teams this season.
OPINION
By Matt Hayes
updated 1:05 a.m. ET Aug. 23, 2009
 | Matt Hayes |
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HOOVER, Ala. - The day began with Mark Richt welcoming everyone to the life of coaching in the SEC.
"It's Year 9 for me," Richt said, "and I'm amazed I'm still here."
This from a guy with 82 wins in 104 career games at Georgia. With two SEC championships in eight seasons, with a team that has averaged 10 wins a year during his time in Athens.
How fitting then, that Day 2 at SEC media days would showcase the league's old guard and its flavor of the summer. Welcome to life in the penthouse, Ole Miss — where it's win or walk. If you want to swim in these waters, you better have one helluva bite.
"It would be disappointing if we don't win (the SEC) championship," said Ole Miss quarterback Jevan Snead.
At the very least, the Rebels look the part.
Forget about being the only team in the SEC West still without an appearance in the league's championship game. Or not having won a league championship in nearly half a century.
The team that, just two years ago, didn't win an SEC game shared space Thursday with league heavyweights Florida, Alabama and Georgia.
"There's no question," Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said, "these are unchartered waters for us."
There was Alabama coach Nick Saban, strolling through the Wynfrey Hotel early Thursday morning while grown men screamed "Roll Tide!" and a middle-aged woman covered her mouth with her autograph book and nearly fainted.
Florida coach Urban Meyer peacocked around the joint, too, fashionably late and explaining (straight-faced) that linebacker Brandon Spikes — possibly the SEC's best talker — decided he was too shy to show up.
Then there was Mr. Everything Tim Tebow, who admitted, yes ladies, he's saving himself for his wedding day. He shook hands with a young girl in the hotel lobby who gasped to her giddy friend that she may never "wash this hand again!"
At one point, I was tempted to ask Touchdown Timmy to place his hand on my head to see if hair would grow back.
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"This stuff doesn't bother me at all," Tebow said.
The question is, will it bother Ole Miss?
The Rebels have the talent (thanks, Ed Orgeron), motivation (decades of futility) and confidence (did you beat Florida?) to finally do what dyed-in-the-wool fans have wanted since Archie Manning turned The Grove sideways for three memorable seasons 40 years ago. The speed limit on campus is 18 mph in deference to the uniform number of the legendary Manning, whose teams — ready for this? — never finished better than fourth in the SEC.
"I heard about him when I was young," Snead said.
When he was young? When Archie's son Eli enrolled at Ole Miss in 2000, Snead was 12. How's that for young?
But it's that beautiful ignorance that might just be enough to get Ole Miss where is hasn't been since the SEC expanded to 12 teams in 1992. History and tradition mean nothing to young players still enjoying the taste of a bowl game for the first time since 2003.
Pressure has no hold on a team that a year ago won at Gainesville and Baton Rouge, the two toughest places in the SEC — and maybe the toughest places in all of college football.
So talk all you want about outside influences and trends and the newness of it all. The Rebels' response is simple: We've got the best defensive line in the SEC, and we've got an offense loaded with talented skill players. That combination, everyone, is the championship formula in the best league in the nation.
"I told our guys when you start believing, you start achieving," Nutt said.
So wouldn't you know it, Nutt decided to take the first dip in the deep end last week, allowing truTV to follow the Rebels through fall camp and up to the first game of the season at Memphis. Instead of poor-mouthing or ducking the inevitable, Nutt invited distraction because it's eventually going to happen one way or the other.
Why not get it out of the way before the season begins — and get a month-long recruiting pitch in the process.
"I want the cameras on them; I want them to get used to it," Nutt said. "I want them to flinch."
Lost amid the offseason hype and the statement victories last year over Florida, LSU and Texas Tech — and the six-game winning streak to finish the season—was this juicy little nugget: After winning in Gainesville last September, the Rebels lost at home to South Carolina before the magic unfolded.
Maybe, just maybe, that loss last year was this team's introduction to the penthouse. And now here they are back at the big table.
No sense in leaving now.
"Why shouldn't we enjoy it?" Ole Miss safety Kendrick Lewis said. "Doesn't mean we're not going to work just as hard to stay here."
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