Mississippi (Ole Miss) 2010 Statistics
(SEC) The Rebels play on an artificial field (AstroPlay) at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium (seats 60,580)
- Houston Nutt is in his 4th year as head coach at Ole Miss. After his first two 9-4 seasons, last year his team dropped to 4-8. Nutt’s first year here in 2008 was when the team looked the best.
Running Back Brandon Bolden & Head Coach Nutt
That year everything seemed to turn around and they were the only team to beat the eventual national champion Florida that year (then Florida QB Tim Tebow’s post-game “Promise” speech was inspired by Florida’s loss to Ole Miss). As a reminder, Nutt found his way to Ole Miss after his previous stint at Arkansas, where he was perhaps forced to resign, but it is unclear exactly what happened.
- Last year the team returned a total of just 10 starters. With the loss of talent and their tough SEC schedule, I would have expected them to drop to about 6-6. But they had two surprising defeats to FCS school Jacksonville State and to the 2-10 Vanderbilt Commodores, which explains why they won just 4 games. The secondary was particularly hit hard by losses of personnel and went from one of the top passing defenses in the nation to one of the worst.
- Who is their quarterback this year? The first two years went well with Jevan Snead, but last year he departed early for the NFL and Jeremiah Masoli was somehow cleared to play immediately by the NCAA as a transfer student from Oregon after being dismissed for rules violations. This year Nathan Stanley has transferred out, but West Virginia transfer Barry Brunetti comes in and once again the NCAA has cleared a transfer quarterback to play immediately. It looks like Junior Randall Mackey will probably win the starting job though as he is considered the most accurate passer of the potential group of starters. He is a junior college transfer who put up amazing stats at that level.
- And in sharp contrast to last year’s inexperienced offensive line, this year, they are very experienced and the entire 2 deep (starters and back-ups) returns. This should help considerably for the offense and breaking in a new quarterback.
- Good news returns in the form of running back Brandon Bolden who did a good job coming in and taking over the starting position last year. He averaged a very impressive 6 yards per carry and look for him to rush for over 1,000 yards this year.
- With the schedule this year, Ole Miss should improve from their losing record last year, but realistically fans should expect a 7-5 season from them.
