The timing of it all went from the unfortunate to the unthinkable.
No matter what you think of Ole Miss and coach Hugh Freeze’s ability to recruit elite players, you have to marvel at the sheer genius of winning on multiple levels.
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With the backdrop of a Yahoo! report late last week detailing an NCAA notice of allegations that includes violations in the football program, Ole Miss went out and beat — in no particular order — the aura of allegations hanging over the program, negative recruiting and heavyweight recruiters from its own conference to land a Top 6 class.
A class that could be better than the 2013 class that elevated the program to the nation’s elite — and brought with it skepticism on how Ole Miss recruits.
“It’s frustrating as heck,” Freeze said of the idea that Ole Miss is operating other than above board.
He paused for a moment, then added sternly, “we’ve changed the narrative here. And they don’t like it.”
Take your pick on who exactly “they” are. The NCAA. SEC rivals. Anyone who can’t believe Ole Miss — the only SEC West Division team from the original 12 in the league to not play in the conference championship game — recruiting as well as anyone in the nation’s best conference.
You say it just can’t be. Freeze says look at the results.
When you’re the only team that has beaten Alabama under coach Nick Saban in back-to-back seasons, it resonates with recruits. When you’ve played in back-to-back New Year’s Six bowls, that’s what sells.
When you’ve got underclassmen declaring early for the NFL — three of whom are locks for the first round — high school players take notice.
“What happened was a credit to the way we do things here,” Freeze said. “Relationships won out in the end.”
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And it led to a class that, in three years, could be better than the 2013 class that Freeze used as the foundation of his program. That class included program-defining stars like Robert Nkemdiche, Laremy Tunsil, Laquon Treadwell, Evan Engram, Tony Conner and Quincy Adeboyejo.
This one includes a program-defining quarterback (Shea Patterson) who can sit and learn behind a potential All-American (Chad Kelly); offensive tackle Greg Little (think Tunsil), defensive tackle Benito Jones (think Nkemdiche) and wideout A.J. Brown (think Treadwell).
This class, just like 2013, comes with the backdrop of how.
How does Ole Miss go into Louisiana — with LSU desperate for a quarterback — and get the best quarterback in the 2016 class? How do the Rebels get Brown, who went to high school in Starkville, Miss. (the home of rival Mississippi State)? How does Little leave the state of Texas for a program that hasn’t won an SEC championship since 1963?
Because the one guy who controls what it’s all about in Oxford, is the one guy who couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. There’s a reason Freeze has stayed at Ole Miss despite overtures from other schools in and out of the SEC.
It would have been easier to make more money and go somewhere else, and lead a program that has more built-in advantages than Ole Miss. But Freeze born and raised in the state of Mississippi, and believes in the dream of what can be at Ole Miss instead of the nightmare of what was. And he can sell the hell out of it.
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He did it three years ago, and has consistently done it since. That he has Ole Miss back near the top shouldn’t really be a surprise.
You want to criticize Freeze for something? Take aim at his team failing to stop a fourth-and-25 against Arkansas that would’ve sent the Rebels to the SEC Championship Game and changed the entire dynamic of the 2015 season.
Then what? Then if Ole Miss beats Florida in a rematch and wins the SEC Championship, is a Top 5 recruiting class really such a surprise?
Who knows what will come of the NCAA investigation. A source told Sporting News a majority of the violations are from the former coaching staff (Houston Nutt), and the one prominent violation from this staff (Tunsil’s contact with an agent) was responded to proactively and addressed with a multiple-game suspension.
Know this: an elite group of players isn’t signing with Ole Miss without full knowledge of the severity of any violations.
Or without a coach who can sell a dream like no other.
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