Gutcheck!!!

It's the morning after Ole Miss was proved to be out of place in the discussion of the best teams in college football. I hope that this is one of those scenarios where, when I look back to this post I will laugh at how wrong I was... However, I doubt that will be the case. Rooster 16 Ole Miss 10.

Where to begin? There are no excuses, none! Ole Miss was out-performed in every aspect of the game. Stephen Garcia(half-injured) looked more like a heisman candidate than Jevan Snead. Hell, Nathan Stanley carrying a clipboard on the sidelines looked more like a heisman candidate than Snead did. I saw Jevan make 1(yes, count 'em) decent pass last night and really it was even kind of a lucky throw. Personally, I'm sick of hearing about how everyone had the flu and missed practice, etc.. That was the week after Memphis(bye week,) so everyone should be 100% healthy from that epidemic. Snead deserves a ton of criticism for this loss, but its not totally his fault. I hope that he hasn't made any big plans to get drafted next April, his draft stock took a major hit last night.

Next subject... Let it be known that after last night, I will admit that the most important part of anyone's football team is their Offensive line. To be more specific, the left tackle. Drop back after drop back last night, you could see the pocket begin to collapse over on Bradley Sowell's side of the line... Not every time, but most often. Where is the Massie kid at? Does he not "grasp" the offense? At this point, I'd rather stick him in there as a freshman and let him learn on the fly. Or maybe, he just hasn't lived up to the hype of being as highly touted as a recruit as he was... Which is one way he should fit in perfectly at Ole Miss. Our O-line last night didn't bother doing a halfway decent job at run-blocking either. This of course was covered up a bit by the way McCluster ran around the SC defense in the 4th. He made our rushing stats look a little bit better. Now, that brings me right into my next area...

Dexter McCluster. I have a question for the coaching staff. Why can we not get Dexter the ball at least 25 times a game? Do you guys not see that as being very important? I don't want to hear that he's only 170 pounds, or its 5'8" or whatever... Play him until he can no longer physically be on the field anymore. He(and not Snead) is basically our whole offense. If you let him burn a team, then other teams will key on him and will open up other options for our offense... It seems so simple, right?

Ok, now its time for me to complain a little bit. I appreciate the deal between the SEC and ESPN to basically broadcast every SEC game. However, I HATE ESPN!!!!! I've hated them for a while, but after their total disrespect in every aspect of broadcasting last night, I wish I could say that I will never watch their programming anymore. Their biased reporting in the sport of baseball is why I've developed a hatred for them, but thats a whole different story. Mark May = Trev Alberts.

I'm not going to bash our defense too bad. They got put in a few tight spots and performed admirably in those spots. Really, the only complaint I have was Nix allowing himself to get beaten by dialing up too many blitzes early in the game. Lockett, Tillman, Powe, and Hardy all played well, they get plenty of pressure on the opposing QB by themselves... Meaning we don't need to blitz very often and leave our secondary to man coverage. That is our weak link. Vaughn and Green both deserved to be benched last night, but we don't have anyone else we can run out there. I'm hoping that we may actually start to recruit defensive secondary players, instead of moving WR's to CB's.

The "koolaid." Yup, I drank it. I believe that we have a good football team, but I let hype get in the way of my better judgement. I truly had it tempered for a while, but the exaulted expectations I heard from everyone got me to believing. That was my mistake. In the end it doesn't matter what anyone says about us, we are still Ole Miss. Overblown expectations always lead to disappointment and thats something that our head coach knows far too much about.

Coaching disappointment... Not much to say here. Nix performed decently, NUTT and AUSTIN didn't, simple as that. Terrible play calling and not focusing on our strengths lead to our ultimate demise.

And finally(I had to cut this down in length, I could really get long-winded here.) Mississippi State fans... Can I ask you a question? Why do you care so much what Ole Miss does? I following college football closely every week, but never do I search to find out how the Bulldogs are doing. I could care less actually. We play each other every year at the end of the season. I will always believe that Mississippi State would rather see Ole Miss lose a game than watch State win one. Why does it matter so much where Ole Miss is ranked or what the Rebel fans are saying about their team? Worry about what Mullen is doing and Lee, etc. Talk your smack the week before the Egg Bowl... You can rejoice that Ole Miss lost last night and you can rejoice that yet another team for Mississippi failed to live up to their expectations, and everytime that happens it gets a little bit harder for us to get into the national spotlight... And yeah, that affect you too Bulldogs. Thats not just in football either. The nation hates to spotlight a team from Mississippi.

So, in closing... yeah, Ole Miss lost and yeah there are actually folks out there still delirious enough to claim that, "oh, its just one loss." Nope, its just a loss to South Carolina and if we play that way against Alabama, Auburn, LSU, and Arkansas, we will end up with 5 defeats. Suffice it to say that we haven't looked particularly sharp in any game this season. BCS dreams may end up in Independence Bowl nightmares, lets stop getting the cart before the horse.