Editor’s note: I reached out to longtime friend of the brand, Brent Remadna, for his thoughts on this 2019 Ole Miss Rebels team. Last year, he pitched in on our season preview. This year, he wrote a whole ass article. What follows are his words on what to expect from Ole Miss football this season.
There are always a number of question marks surrounding college football. Who will be in the preseason top ten? Who will win the SEC? Who will be the starting quarterback? For Ole Miss fans, there are a lot of question marks as well.
The days of being in the NCAA dog house are over for the Rebels, for now, but those two years left a lot of holes for each position group. Is there talent? Absolutely. This is the SEC, but when other teams can recruit and you are having trouble, that hurts. We will certainly see the pains from this during the 2019-2020 season.
Defense has been the Achilles heel for Matt Luke since he took over as head man in Oxford, but I think this year we will see some improvement. I mean you can’t get worse than what we’ve seen. With a new defensive coordinator in Mike MacIntyre, the defense will get a different look with a 3-4 defensive scheme. The saying goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” well folks it was broke – so this change is good.
MacIntyre will have quite the task ahead of him, but he will try to improve an Ole Miss defense that ranked at or near the bottom of the Southeastern Conference in most major statistical categories. Good luck Coach!
The Ole Miss Offense might be the most intriguing unit with a lot of unproven talent. Rich Rodriguez, in his first year as offensive coordinator, will look to lean on Scottie Phillips who was just short of 1,000 yards last year. The stable of running backs also has shown in practice that this can be a powerful unit, but only time will tell. Keep and eye on “Snoop” Conner and Jerrion Ealy, both should play a role in this year’s offense.
Running back is big in Rich Rod’s run and gun, but a field general is also needed. Quarterback Matt Corall played in four games last year so those first year jitters should be gone. The good news is he keeps his freshman status with the new NCAA redshirt rule and will only get better as he matures. While he is the starter and should be moving forward, there are freshmen behind him who are pushing him each week at practice.
The Rebels lost three receivers to the NFL and this would sound like a problem, but Ole Miss has recruited well at the position and picked up a few talented guys in the freshmen class. I expect big things from this unit if Corral lives up to the hype.
This team won’t win a National Championship or an SEC Championship, but they should be fun to watch. I can see a few upsets, but I can also see a few losses that shouldn’t happen. The team is young and is set up for success in the future, but Ole Miss fans are hungry for wins now. Will Ole Miss make a bowl game? I say yes, but it will be close.
I predict Ole Miss will go 6-6. If this happens, watch out SEC because this team is young.
Follow Brent Remadna on Twitter. Follow WKRN Nashville here!
(Editor’s note: Brent’s a lot higher on Ole Miss than I am. If you care to read a much more pessimistic season preview, you can check mine out here. As always, big time thank you to Brent! We gotta put a beer bet on that Rebels-Tide game!)
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