UGA vs. Ole Miss Look Ahead

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has come a long way since our last visit.


DawgSports.com starts things off with Kyle's exhaustive Ole Miss preview.

My long and short preview is pretty basic. Offensively, where Ole Miss lacks talent they make up for it with inexperience. On defense, there is some talent (such as all-world MLB Patrick Willis), but the bigger issue is depth. They lack the talent to play with a team like UGA as long as we walk into Oxford focused.

Why so little talent?
When you factor out non-qualifiers and people named Manning, David Cutcliff recruited at near Wake Forest levels. Per Scout.com, Ole Miss didn't register a Top 25 recruiting class in 2002-2005, and as I stated that's before their normal heavy non-qualifier losses.

The Orgeron walked into as bare a cupboard as you can imagine for a team just 2 years removed from the Cotton Bowl. Coach O's recruiting improved dramatically last year; however, his prize signee, Juco QB Brent Schaeffer, only arrived at Ole Miss within the past 48 or so hours. Plus, you can't solve all your talent/depth problems with 1 class. Any inexperience that we have at QB is offset by Ole Miss' starting QB having never run a play in his new system before being named starter.

Captain Obvious Factoid of the Week:
When your QB is an academic misfit struggled to graduate from junior college missed spring practice and was unable to participate in summer drills, don't expect much depth in the playbook.

Away from the Gridiron:
To me this looks like another road night game for UGA. The other games that week are:

• Alabama at Florida - near lock for CBS
  
• Auburn at South Carolina - Thursday night ESPN
  
• Georgia at Ole Miss - ESPN2 Night Game?
  
• Central Michigan at Kentucky
  
• Mississippi State at LSU - screams JPSports 12:30
  
• Tennessee at Memphis - ESPN day game***
  
• Kent State at Vanderbilt

***Per ESPN's website, they already agreed to televise UT at Memphis likely as part of some sort of Conference USA package. I'd wager that's a 12:00 game on ESPN2. There is no ESPN Primetime slot for the SEC on that Saturday. The Big 10 has it for either Iowa vs. Ohio State or Michigan vs. Minnesota.

The Top 5 great things about going to Oxford:

1. The co-eds
2. Dixie
3. The Grove
4. Hotty Toddy
5. The co-eds

Ole Miss vs. LSU pre-game. Hotty Toddy indeed.

On the season, I don't see the Rebels bowling. Their non-conference slate includes Memphis, Missouri and Wake Forest in the first four games. They won't be heavy favorites in any of those games. However, they catch a break with Vandy and UK from the east both on the schedule in the same year. I think you'll see them pull in at 5-7. 6-6 would be a major accomplishment for this crew.

As for the UGA game, this looks like a classic "look past" game with UGA playing the Vols the following week. Dawgs win by less than expected because we show up asleep. Something like 24-10.

pwd

Fight Song from FightMusic.com.

Tweet