Ole Miss Football: Contenders or Pretenders in 2016

As we continue the arduous task that is the college football offseason, we continue to preview the SEC football pretenders and contenders. Up next is the Tennessee football squad.

If you’ve been following along with our contender or pretender series, you know how this works. For those of you only discovering this due to your love for Ole Miss football, let me break it down a bit for you. Being a contender has nothing to do with bowl games or being better or worse than the year before. If Ole Miss football is to be considered a contender for the 2016 season, they must have a realistic shot at least winning the SEC West in 2016. To see how the other teams we have covered thus far stack up, check out the links below.

Many predicted big things for Ole Miss football in 2015. While Ole Miss allowing a 4th and 25 prevented them from making a trip to Atlanta to compete for the SEC Championship, the Rebels still reached double digit wins for the first time since Eli Manning donned the red and blue. They also won a New Year’s Six Bowl and ended the season as one of the hottest teams in the country. Can they keep the momentum going in 2016?

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Ole Miss Football (Contender)

You can win football games without a quarterback. You cannot, however, win a championship without one. Fortunately for Ole Miss football fans, they return one of the best in the entire country in 2016 in Chad Kelly. As olemisssports.com reported, Kelly “roke or tied 14 Ole Miss single-season records, including total yards (4,542), passing yards (4,042), passing TDs (31), touchdowns responsible for (41), completions (298), completion percentage (65.1), passing efficiency (155.9) and 300-yard passing games (8).” All of these accomplishments were achieved with only being with Ole Miss football for one season and splitting time to begin the season. With Kelly returning to guide the offense in 2016, the sky will be the limit for what the Rebels can achieve offensively. Kelly still isn’t the most important returning part of Ole Miss football.

Coach Hugh Freeze has done a tremendous job of maintaining continuity during his tenure leading the Rebels. He was able to extend it even further by continuing to keep his coaching staff together. While some programs go through coordinators on a regular basis, the new players will be hearing the same offensive philosophies that Robert Nkemdiche and Co. heard when they entered the program as freshman. While both the offense and defense have lost several key leaders, the message will continue to be the same on both offense and defense. Even though this can become a problem with NFL coaches as they can become stale to their team, players typically only remain in college 3-5 years. Team leaders like CJ Johnson and Trae Elson have departed, but new voices will undoubtedly emerge in the locker room and on the field in 2016. There will be plenty of talent to go with those voices as well.

Since Hugh Freeze took over the Ole Miss football program, the Rebels have been recruiting heavyweights. Since signing the nation’s #8 class in 2013, Freeze and Co. have landed the #15, #17 and #6 classes according to 247sports.com to continue to build depth and reliability as the Rebels chase an SEC Championship. While classes that rank #15 and #17 don’t have as much star power as the other two, there is no denying that the Rebels have continued to become a deeper and more talented team each year Freeze has been leading the program, as evidenced by the team adding to their win total each year that he has been the coach. This will be the first season since his first, though, without the trio of Nkemdiche, Tunsil and Treadwell. Can the Rebels continue their rise without them?

Ole Miss Football (Pretender)

The Ole Miss football team is experiencing a wide range of emotions during this offseason. The program received a notice of allegations from the NCAA and will present their response at the end of this month. They saw 3 of their own drafted in their first round for the first time in program history, while also watching in horror as Nkemdiche and (especially) Tunsil saw their draft stock steadily decline after the conclusion of the 2015 regular season. Regardless of how some may view the trio, Ole Miss football fans would certainly love to have them back for the on-field production for one more season. They all produced in big games, and there will plenty in 2016 for Ole Miss football.

The 2016 football schedule for Ole Miss is absolutely insane. There’s no third of a schedule in the country that appears as brutal in the preseason as the one for Ole Miss. The Rebels will play Florida State in Orlando before playing host to Georgia and Alabama in back-to-back weeks. While playing both of those games at home will be a huge benefit, all of those games take place BEFORE the month of October. That still leaves LSU, Texas A&M, Auburn, Arkansas, Mississippi State and Memphis. If Ole Miss drops an early game and fails to respond, the 2016 Ole Miss football season could get ugly in a hurry. The Rebels also have to be worried about a few positions on the field.

While the often reported fact that Ole Miss lost its entire starting line from the Sugar Bowl is a bit misleading (injuries played a factor in some of the upperclassmen starting that game), there is no denying the Rebels lost a ton of talent along the offensive line this offseason. Both tackles (Laremy Tunsil and Fahn Cooper) were taken in the NFL draft, while Ben Still, Aaron Morris and Justin Bell were all experienced SEC linemen with a ton of starts to their names. While returning offensive tackles/centers Sean Rawlings and Robert Conyers and guards Javon Patterson and Rod Taylor bring a wealth of SEC experience back with them, incoming offensive tackle Gregory Little will likely decide the success or failure of this unit in 2016.

Ole Miss football fans are also likely worried about linebacker, though they hope the staff has addressed those concerns with some late 2016 additions. The Rebels were able to add a middle linebacker in Oregon State graduate transfer Rommel Mageo as well as an outside linebacker from Iowa Western Community College in Detric Bing-Dukes. While Mageo will be counted on to contribute immediately, Bing-Dukes will likely add depth and relieves some of the future roster pressure at the position. So can the Rebels actually compete for an SEC West division title in 2016?

Ole Miss Football (The Verdict)

If Ole Miss played in the SEC East, I’d name them the favorites for an SEC Eastern Division Title without hesitation. That isn’t the case, though, and the Rebels will be hard pressed to beat out the preseason favorites Alabama and LSU. While Ole Miss football has continually grown under Hugh Freeze, they still can’t match the annual recruiting of those two juggernauts. I see the Rebels as being a half step behind Alabama and LSU over the course of a full season, but also a half step ahead of the rest of the SEC West. If Ole Miss can respond well to an early season loss (I can’t imagine them starting 4-0), they’ll be in contention for an SEC Championship Game all season. On the flip side, a poor response to an early loss could leave the Rebels bowl eligible and not much else.

More sec: http://southboundanddown.com/2016/05/06/2017-nfl-draft-chad-kelly-gets-drafted-in-the-1st-round/

Ole Miss football has improved their win total each year Freeze has been the coach. If they can repeat that feat this year, it may be enough to get them in the SEC Championship Game. I’m not sold on Ole Miss being a favorite to win the brutal SEC West, but I do think they have to be taken seriously as a contender.