Ole Miss Football: Ranking 2020 opponents by toughness
After the failure that was the Chad Morris era in Fayetteville, finished off with a 2-10 overall mark and an 0-8 SEC record, it’s a new dawn for Arkansas in 2020. Former Georgia offensive line coach, and tremendous recruiter, Sam Pittman is the new man for the Razorbacks, and despite it being his debut season as a head coach, he’s already brought renewed energy to a program in desperate need of exactly that.
This team is led by tailback Rakeem Boyd, and he’ll run behind a line that returns four of five starters, and the unit’s lone underclassman is one of those four.
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That’s a huge boon to new quarterback Feleipe Franks, who transferred from Florida, as well as new offensive coordinator Kendall Briles. There are also a couple of few young playmakers on the outside in Mike Woods, Treylon Burks and Trey Knox, who should blossom in 2020.
Former Missouri head coach Barry Odom inherits a massive rebuilding project on the defense, but after the abysmal 2019 campaign, the Razorbacks still appear set to win more games than they did a year ago. That’s not saying much, but for a program in such dire shape, the resurgence won’t happen immediately.
This isn’t the best team on Ole Miss’ schedule, but there’s no mistaking that this is the biggest game. The Egg Bowl has a long history of great games, and in recent years, the vitriol has been turned up to 11.
It certainly helps that these two schools have two of the nation’s most polarizing coaches. Bulldog head coach Mike Leach is the most eccentric coach in the country, and he’ll bring his high-powered offense and record-breaking track record to Starkville.
There’s also Kylin Hill, the star tailback who helped provide a rare moment of unity between the two schools during the offseason. After his statement regarding the state flag, which bears the image of the confederate flag, Kiffin and Leach, along with basketball coaches Kermit Davis and State’s Ben Howland, joined a group at the state capitol to lobby for the emblem’s removal.