This is a huge season for Matt Luke.
The pressure amps up a bit now there’s bowl eligibility to play, and to take that step, Luke and the Ole Miss Rebels need to take advantage of a fairly favorable early schedule.
They open the season Aug. 31 at Memphis, which could be the toughest of the first four game games. Southeast Louisiana isn’t a problem in non-conference play a few weeks later, but that’s followed up by what might be the ultimate all-offense vs. all-defense showdown against Cal in Week 4.
I can see Ole Miss starting 4-0 if it gets past Memphis. The Rebs catch Arkansas, SE Louisiana and Cal in a three-game home stint before going to Alabama for the SEC road opener.
SEC West rivals Texas A&M and LSU have to come to Oxford, but the Rebels have to go to Alabama and Auburn. At least there’s an open date before dealing with the Tigers.
The Egg Bowl? It’s in Starkville, but at least there’s a week off to prepare for Mississippi State.
For Ole Miss to exceed expectations, it needs — at the worst — a 3-1 start to leave some wiggle room to reach a winning season. Those wins get hard to come by once SEC play sets in.
That’s why the second game of 2019 is a true tone-setter as both teams try to reinvent themselves.
Both Ole Miss and Arkansas come into a new season with new expectations after disappointing campaigns in 2018. The winner of this one will have a chance to surprise some folks.
The Ole Miss-Arky winner picks up some much-needed early SEC momentum while the loser ... Well, someone has to finish last in the West.
In each of the last three seasons, that team has been either Ole Miss or Arkansas. On Sept. 7, these teams will have their first chance to try to reverse this trend.
As of now, I will take Ole Miss in that one. I am guessing about seven wins this season for the Rebels. This is much better than the experts are predicting. Las Vegas has set the over-under win total at five for Ole Miss. And here’s something Rebel fans need to know: the totals have been wildly accurate in the Luke Era. Ole Miss’s win total in 2017 was set at 5.5; it won six games. In 2018, the team’s total sat at six. They won five games. There’s a reason these casinos stay afloat. They hire expert mathematicians to run algorithms on all this data – Vegas always wins in the long haul.
But for now, I am thinking they got this one wrong. Here’s how it will happen: Ole Miss starts 4-0 before falling to 4-3, with losses to Auburn and Texas A&M to come.
I say they go into the Thanksgiving night matchup with rival Mississippi State at 6-4 and walk out of Starkville with the upset victory to finish 7-4.
I know what you are thinking: “Did he forget that the Rebels went 5-7 last season, and that was with a roster that produced six NFL Draft selections?”
I guess I am putting a lot of stock into how much I think new coordinators will help Ole Miss. I just believe Rich Rodriguez (offense) and Mike MacIntyre (defense) will make enough of a difference for this team to exceed these not-so-lofty expectations. Only time will tell if I am right, but the one thing we have plenty of is time — since the start of the college football season is now 42 days away.
But who is counting? We are, for sure.
nContact Bill Burrus at 581-7237 or bburrus@gwcommonwealth.com.
