The Ole Miss football program is under a lot of scrutiny right now after head coach Hugh Freeze resigned. But times weren’t all bad.
Ole Miss is not in a good place right now. Amid allegations that could ultimately lead to the death penalty for the program, let’s take a look back. Now former Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze did have some great years with the Rebels and it’s sad to see it shrouded in scandal. As a college football fan, you never want to see a program go down the road Ole Miss is headed right now.
The same thing with Baylor, it’s never good to see a coach like Art Briles and a program like the Bears go through what they’re currently dealing with. However, what happens behind the scenes in regard to stuff this illegal needs to be revealed and transparent.
The NCAA has been looking into the Ole Miss football program for more than a year now and the death penalty has even been talked about. Yet, this article is not about what might happen with the Rebels now, it’s about the actual good times they saw during the last couple seasons.
Hugh Freeze his college coaching career a little more than one decade again, with Ole Miss, as a tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator. He made the jump to offensive coordinator then head coach with the Arkansas State Red Wolves a few years later before he was officially hired as head coach with the University of Mississippi before the start of the 2012 season.
Freeze locked up the number eight overall recruiting class in the nation in just his second year with the Rebels, according to 247Sports Composite Team Rankings. That class included future first round NFL Draft picks such as defensive end Robert Nkemdiche, wide receiver Laquon Treadwell, and offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil. Other key players from that recruiting class were safety Tony Conner and tight end Evan Engram.
The amount of talented players Freeze brought to Oxford during his five year tenure with the Rebels was quite impressive. Now, let’s take a look at the 10 best Ole Miss football players during Hugh Freeze’s time in Oxford.
If this list were based on Ole Miss players under Hugh Freeze that have had the best career in the NFL so far, then wide receiver Donte Moncrief would be much higher. He did have a great three year career with the Rebels but only two of them were with Freeze.
In Moncrief’s two years with Freeze, he notched more than 1,900 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns. Quarterback Bo Wallace was the main man throwing Moncrief the ball during his Ole Miss career. However, Randall Mackey was the first quarterback that Moncrief worked with. He was productive no matter which quarterback threw to him.
The actual effect that Freeze had on Moncrief’s career is hard to judge. Moncrief did more than double his production with Freeze at the helm but that could be due to an increased role and more experience. There was definitely some effect that Freeze had on Moncrief because of the immediate increase in success between the entire Ole Miss offense and team in 2012.
Most players that played under Freeze in 2012 and 2013 are at a disadvantage here because he did not recruit most of them. That is the case for Moncrief as well.
Bo Wallace had an up and down career with Ole Miss, as he was the starting quarterback each year he was with the Rebels. In all three years, Wallace threw at least half as many interceptions as touchdowns. He struggled with turnovers every single season and he did not really seem to improve his overall stat line throughout his career either.
The highlight of Wallace’s career was easily leading Ole Miss to a victory over the no. 1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in 2014. That was Wallace’s best season as a starting quarterback and the second most wins that Freeze racked up as a head coach during his Ole Miss career.
Wallace is one of the most well-known quarterbacks in Ole Miss football history. He threw almost 10,000 yards and 62 touchdowns in his three-year career. However, both of those stats are overshadowed by the 41 interceptions he threw.
Ole Miss improved their record every single year that Wallace was quarterback. He emerged alongside Freeze but ran out of eligibility before the Rebels reached their true peak in 2015.
Evan Engram was active throughout nearly Freeze’s entire tenure. It’s also crazy to think that Engram was originally only a three-star recruit, considering how talented of a tight end he is. He was drafted in the first round, 23rd overall, by the New York Giants in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Engram is just another first rounder from the famed 2013 recruiting class for Ole Miss. In his four year career with Ole Miss, Engram racked up 2,320 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns. His best season came in 2016 when he caught a career-high 65 passes for 926 yards and eight touchdowns.
There’s always going to be a special place for Engram in Ole Miss fans’ heart for being known as one of the best, if not the best, receiving tight end in college football during the ladder half of his career. He rarely dropped a pass and was one of a number of talented targets that both Bo Wallace and Chad Kelly had to throw to.
The absence of Engram will be noticed for the coming years in the Ole Miss offense as they try to find a replacement at tight end.
The most versatile defensive player that Freeze had might have been C.J. Johnson. His career started at linebacker in 2011. Johnson then played on the defensive line from 2012-2014. And then his career finished back at linebacker.
Moreover, Johnson was successful at any position he played for Ole Miss. He racked up 180 total tackles, 27.5 tackles for loss, 13.5 sacks, three interceptions, three fumble recoveries, and two forced fumbles during his five year career.
Johnson is not the most recognizable name that Freeze ever coached. Yet, he was one of the most serviceable and important to the success that the Rebels saw between 2012-2015.
Related Story: SEC Football: 5 teams most likely to disappoint in 2017
The way that Johnson finished his career in Ole Miss’s Sugar Bowl victory at the end of the 2015 season was spectacular as well. He racked up 1.5 sacks in the 28-point victory against the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
The “Landshark Defense” was largely anchored by a secondary that safety Tony Conner was a huge part of. The combination of Trae Elston, Tony Bridges, Senquez Golson, etc. along with Conner formed a rock solid secondary for a number of years.
Conner played an integral role in the success of Ole Miss’s defense, the thing that Freeze tried to build the team around. The original foundation that Freeze tried to build with the Rebels was built around the defense, hence the “Landshark Defense”.
Unlike other defensive players that Freeze recruited like Robert Nkemdiche and Denzel Nkemdiche, Conner lived up to the hype in every way. However, the only way that Conner will continue to have a future in football is by making it through mini camp in 2018 or getting signed to a practice squad and working his way up with an NFL team.
According to SEC Country, the 49ers invited Conner to mini camp and eventually got a jersey number with the team.
Chad Kelly was one of the two great quarterbacks that Freeze worked with in his time in Oxford. Kelly and Bo Wallace both had successful careers with Ole Miss. However, there were only two years that Kelly actually spent with the Rebels.
He had an up and down career in college, starting at Clemson in 2013 and finishing up at Ole Miss in 2016. Kelly even spent some time at East Mississippi Community College in between his stints at Clemson and Ole Miss.
The 2016 campaign for Kelly and Rebels saw Ole Miss reach nearly the highest highs and the lowest lows. In Week 1 against the Florida State Seminoles, Ole Miss carried a 28-6 lead at one point. That game resulted in a 45-34 loss in one of the biggest leads blown by any team last season.
Just a few weeks later, Ole Miss lost another winnable game against Alabama. That would have been Ole Miss’s third consecutive year defeating the Tide, a feat looks nearly impossible against Nick Saban nowadays.
Kelly’s career stats in slightly less than two seasons with Ole Miss are nothing less than impressive. He notched 6,800 passing yards and 51 touchdowns. Kelly also added on another 15 touchdowns on the ground.
Laremy Tunsil was easily the most talented and successful offensive lineman that Freeze coached. Aside from a Twitter video that exposed Tunsil taking part in recreational drugs that really hurt his NFL Draft stock, he was also one of the highest drafted Ole Miss players as well.
Even with the emergence of that video of Tunsil on Twitter, he was still drafted by the Miami Dolphins, 14th overall, in the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft. Tunsil had a great rookie year in the NFL, being named to the PFWA All-Rookie Team at the end of the 2016 season.
Tunsil only spent three years in Oxford because of the chance to get drafted in the top five of the 2016 NFL Draft but he greatly enhanced the Ole Miss offense in those three seasons. He saw the best of the Rebels during Freeze’s tenure, including the Rebels’ top 10 finish in the rankings after the end of the 2015 season.
This might be the boldest selection on the list. Considering quarterback Shea Patterson only played a handful of games in one season under Freeze, he definitely was not the most experienced player ever. Yet, Patterson was the best offensive player that Freeze recruited in his five year with Ole Miss.
More from Ole Miss Rebels
- Previewing ACC football’s biggest games in Week 3
- Ole Miss football: 3 takeaways from huge road win over Tulane
- Ole Miss football: 3 reasons the Rebels will beat No. 24 Tulane
- Ole Miss football: 3 bold predictions for 2023 season
- Ole Miss football: 3 newcomers who’ll have the biggest impacts in 2023
The list is a ranking of the 10 best players, and while Patterson’s career has yet to unfold, he is absolutely one of the top three most talented players that he coached. Patterson threw for 880 yards and six touchdowns in three games last season. He’s expected to be the player that Ole Miss builds around for the foreseeable future.
If nothing else, at least Freeze left the Rebels with an extremely talented young quarterback that could bring Ole Miss back to prominence. Yet, some bad news for the Rebels came about recently with the announcement that the USC Trojans are targeting Patterson for transfer, according to 247Sports.
The Trojans would presumably want Patterson to take the reigns on offense after superstar quarterback Sam Darnold leaves for the 2018 NFL Draft.
By the 2015 season, Ole Miss had one of the best receiving corps in the country. Receivers like Laquon Treadwell, Cody Core, Quincy Adeboyejo, Evan Engram, etc. formed a formidable group that gave almost every secondary in the SEC trouble.
Treadwell was the best offensive player that Freeze had during his tenure in Oxford. He was originally part of that same recruiting class as Robert Nkemdiche and Tony Conner, two other players on this list.
In total, Treadwell hauled in 202 passes for 2,393 yards and 21 touchdowns. His best season came in 2015, his junior year, where he caught 83 passes for more than 1,100 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Not only in the SEC but cornerbacks all across the college football landscape had trouble containing Treadwell. He had some of the strongest hands in college football and his height almost always gave him an edge. That edge led the Minnesota Vikings to draft him in the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft.
Much like quarterback Shea Patterson, defensive lineman Robert Nkemdiche might not have had the best college career under Freeze. However, Nkemdiche was the best player that Freeze ever recruited and by far the most athletic player he coached at Ole Miss.
Nkemdiche consistently showed flashes of what he could do if he reached his full potential but he never claimed the true promise that he had. He did notch a career high three sacks during his junior campaign in 2015. And he never played a full season while he was with the Rebels, playing no more than 10 games during any of his three year career.
In total, Nkemdiche got to the quarterback six times and got 16.0 tackles for loss. Those stats are not the best by any means as Nkemdiche always seemed to have another level that he did not want to go to on the field.
Next: Ranking 20 CFB quarterbacks likely to succeed in NFL
The fact that Freeze was able to recruit a player like Nkemdiche is impressive as is. In the 2016 NFL Draft, Nkemdiche was selected by the Arizona Cardinals in the first round, 29th overall. He was one of many players from that storied 2013 Ole Miss recruiting class that look to make a good career in the NFL in the coming years.