Ole Miss Rebels: Who is Matt Luke?

By now, the entire college football world has heard about Hugh Freeze’s resignation from Ole Miss, but you might not know about their interim head coach, Matt Luke.

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We might not know much about Matt Luke, but one thing is obvious: He bleeds Ole Miss Rebels football. He played center for the Rebels from 1995 to 1998 where he registered 33 career starts. And after two previous stops in Oxford as a graduate assistant in 1999 and offensive line/tight ends coach from 2002 to 2005, Hugh Freeze hired Luke to be his co-offensive coordinator/offensive line coach when he took the job in 2012. He has also made stops at Tennessee and Duke.

Luke now joins Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Missouri’s Barry Odom as the only current SEC head coaches coaching at their alma mater.

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Since Luke took the job as co-offensive coordinator in 2012, the Rebels have made significant strides offensively. In the final year under Houston Nutt in 2011, Ole Miss went 2-10 and averaged 16.1 points per game, which ranked 116th out of 120 FBS teams.

In the five years with Luke serving as co-offensive coordinator, Ole Miss has averaged over 30 points per game in four of those five seasons, including 40.8 points per game in 2015, which was the best in the SEC and 8th best in the country.

With Freeze also serving as co-offensive coordinator, it’s difficult to pinpoint Luke’s impact on the offense. However, his background is on the offensive line, and the Rebels have produced some talented offensive linemen. Laremy Tunsil was the nation’s no. 1 offensive tackle prospect when the Rebels signed him in 2013, although there appears to be much more to that story. Then they signed Greg Little in 2016, who was the nation’s no. 1 offensive tackle in his class.

Motivation was already going to be an issue for the Ole Miss Rebels this season. Because of the university-issued bowl ban, they decided to treat every game like a “bowl game”, which has gimmick written all over it. And redcuprebellion.com took the idea, and had a good laugh at their expense.

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I’m not sure which picture looks more grim, the 2017 football season, or the future of the program in general, but one thing is certain: Matt Luke has an uphill road ahead of him.