Ole Miss football: Pieces are in place for Rebels to surprise in 2020

Ole Miss football is hoping that new coach Lane Kiffin can return the program to its winning ways they enjoyed previously under Hugh Freeze.

Former Ole Miss and current Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze made Ole Miss to an SEC contender by putting together great recruiting classes the likes of which the program had not seen previously by bringing a cutting edge approach to offense that put fear into teams like Alabama.

Freeze had the blueprint and although he was dismissed due to some serious misconduct, he showed what it took to win at a place like Ole Miss.

It was believed that when assistant coach Matt Luke was named the head coach after Freeze’s dismissal, the success would go on and that he could keep the Rebels near the top of the SEC. I don’t know how much of it was due to sanctions on the program, but Luke could not recruit at the same level and the once famous “landshark” defense was no more.

The Rebels had moderate offensive success and could put up points at times, but inconsistency plagued them during Luke’s three years at the head of the program.

This past offseason, Ole Miss made one of the more fascinating hires of the offseason when they brought in Florida Atlantic head coach Lane Kiffin, who is one of the more well known names in college football due to his previous stops as the head coach at USC, Tennessee and as the offensive coordinator at Alabama. He is known as being one of the brightest offensive minds in the game and one of the best recruiters as well so it is not hard to see that Ole Miss is hoping that Kiffin can be like Freeze, but without all the baggage.

This will be a rebuilding job to keep an eye on as Kiffin hopes he can return Ole Miss to competing in the SEC and just be another easy win for teams like LSU and Alabama.