Ole Miss Football: 5 bold predictions for the Rebels in 2017

No. 1 – Matt Luke keeps the job

Six active head coaches have beaten Nick Saban. Here’s the list: Dabo Swinney, Urban Meyer, Gus Malzahn, Kevin Sumlin, Mark Richt and Kyle Whittingham. Of those six, only Meyer has beaten Saban twice. Toppling the Crimson Tide even once can put any head coach into a special tier of coaches. If Luke pulls off the upset he’ll be in rareified air rather quickly..

Then there’s the current state of the Ole Miss Football program to consider. Hugh Freeze’s scandalous exit and the possibility of further NCAA sanctions don’t make the Ole Miss job all that appealing to external candidates. It’s still an SEC gig, so there will be a long line of names willing to throw their name into the hat, but that big fish that the administration would love to hire isn’t walking through any doors in Oxford any time soon.

The Ole Miss job has way too much red tape attached to it for anyone of note to risk their neck for the Rebels. You can go ahead and put away any pipe dreams of Chip Kelly returning to the college ranks in Oxford. Bob Stoops isn’t going to come out of retirement for the Ole Miss job. Instead the Rebels will have their pick of a handful of up-and-coming Group of Five coaches and maybe one or two coaches that lose their battle with the hot seat this season.

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Give all that information, this job is starting to look like Matt Luke’s to lose. The Rebels aren’t signing him to a lengthy, big money contract. But he’s familiar with the program and could absolutely hold down the fort in Oxford for the next two or three years while things blow over. He’ll have the interim tag removed in 2018 and the head job will be his.