Hood vows a comeback

Did the cream start to rise? Or did Orley just have an off day. Cleveland went 8-1 last week, while Hood faltered at 6-3.

On the season, Cleveland leads at 13-5, compared to Hood's 11-7.  Says Orley, "The comeback begins this week." 

We shall see...

Orley's picks

Ole Miss at Tulane: Good for the Rebs to be back at sea level, competition-wise, after a hard day’s night against Texas. Question is, can they heal the bruises, physical and psychological, by Saturday? It’ll be a red and blue weekend in the home of the Green Wave. Ole Miss 38, Tulane 20.

South Alabama at Mississippi State: Reckon USA will double cover Chad Bumphis? Sure. Reckon State’s defense, awful at Troy, can recover from a near nightmare? Sure. State 45, USA 14.

USM at Western Kentucky: The Golden Eagles have been golden duds so far, while Western’s coming off an exhilarating overtime victory against Kentucky. The road may not be the place to get well. WKU 24, USM 20.

LSU at Auburn: LSU rang up 63 points last Saturday while Auburn had a near death experience with Louisiana-Monroe. There won’t anything “near” about the carnage this week. LSU 52, Auburn 17.

Sunday morning musings. . .

Scattershooting while wondering how Oxford's plumbing held up to the Texas invasion. . .

• Did you see the play Western Kentucky used to beat Kentucky in overtime? It was a throwback from a halfback to the quarterback who made a shoestring catch and then could have walked into the end zone. It was a thing of beauty.

• Did you see the personal foul call against Louisiana-Monroe that extended an Auburn touchdown drive in Auburn's narrow victory. It was disgraceful. It was a clean hit and the call could easily have cost ULM its second straight road victory over an SEC opponent.

• Yeah, it was close, but State prevailed at Troy. Of all the things that have impressed me about Dan Mullen's coaching at dear ol' State, the most impressive is this: He wins the games he's supposed to win. That's the key at Ole Miss and State. Win the ones you are supposed to win and then get a couple you aren't. That means a bowl game every year.

• Count me among those who won't mourn USC's (and Lane Kiffin's) late-night loss to Stanford. Just goes to prove there is some justice in the world.

• Rest in peace, Arkansas.

• Have to say: Athletically, not a whole lot of Rebels looked like they belonged on the field with the Longhorn super studs but one who did was sleek, gifted wide receiver Donte Moncrief who is a monster of an athlete.

• Scary: Alabama has an athlete like Moncrief at every position and others chomping at the bit to get on the field.

• Somebody tweeted at me in the wee hours, asking what was the most points ever given up by an Ole Miss team. The answer was 92 to Vandy in 1915. So then I started looking at that Vandy-Ole Miss series in the early years. Fact: Vandy outscored Ole Miss 520-2 in the first 16 meetings between the two teams. Early this morning somebody tweeted back: “Ole Miss's recent record against Vandy isn't much better.

• Still like the play-calling and attacking, fast-paced offense Hugh Freeze is employing at Ole Miss, but he needs more Moncriefs and more beef up front.

• OK, time to get ready for the Saints vs. Cam...

It's all uphill for USM . . .

 

For the first time since 1998, Southern Miss football is off to an 0-2 start.

For the first time in 14 years, the Golden Eagles lost their home opener.

For the first time since October of 2010, USM lost a home game.

Simply put, following Saturday's 24-14 loss to East Carolina, USM football and first-year head coach Ellis Johnson face the biggest uphill climb Golden Eagle football has faced in years.

Clearly at stake: a streak of 17 straight winning seasons and a streak of 10 consecutive seasons that ended in bowl games.

USM out-gained East Carolina 324 to 228, but in this case statistics were clearly for the losers. The stat that mattered most: turnovers, which showed USM with three and East Carolina with not one.

The third quarter was a USM disaster. Leading 7-3 at halftime the Golden Eagles turned the ball over three times and were outscored 21-0. Anthony Alford, making his first start, showed flashes of the ability that made him Mississippi's Mr. Football as a high school senior, but he was often inaccurate with his passes and his reads.

Chris Campbell, who started USM's first game against Nebraska, relieved Alford late in the third quarter and showed more passing accuracy throwing for 145 yards and a touchdown.

Johnson and offensive staff have a decision to make before next Saturday's game at Western Kentucky in a rare must-win September game for the Eagles. Lost that one and Eagles would be 0-3 going into a three-game stretch against 19^th ranked Louisville, Boise State and Central Florida. USM no doubt will be underdogs in all three.

Johnson said afterward the quarterback job is “back open.”

“It's definitely a question right now,” Johnson said. “It's not one we can answer just coming off the game field.”

The guess here: Campbell will start and Alford will be used in short yardage situations. Regardless, USM must play better in all areas if the Eagles are to experience an 18^th consecutive winning season.

20 years ago, a bull became a steer

I'm just guessing that Hugh Freeze hasn't used any props or gizmos to get his Ole Miss Rebels fired up to play the Texas Longhorns Saturday. If the Rebels aren't amped for this one, something's wrong.

But, lest we forget, 20 years ago this week, Jackie Sherrill, then the head coach at Mississippi State, was getting his team ready to play Texas. And Jackie, who never missed a trick, used a prop.

His name was Willy.

Remember?

How could you forget?

Jackie decided to show his football players how a bull becomes a steer. Let's put it this way: Jackie took two — from poor Willy — for the team.

Mack Brown's Mississippi past

Let's go back 37 years to the fall of 1975. I was learning on the job as a sports reporter who still didn't need to shave at The Hattiesburg American.

It was my first full-time newspaper job.

Mack Brown, who will coach Texas at Ole Miss this Saturday night, was learning on the job as the wide receivers coach on Bobby Collins' first staff at Southern Miss.

It was Brown's first full-time coaching job.

I was 23; he was 24.

He played tennis; I played golf. He tried to convert me, correctly saying I'd get a lot more exercise in much less time on the tennis courts. Besides, he said, assistant football coaches, who aspire to be head coaches, have far too little free time for golf.

These guys can't pick their noses

So, we move into the third week of the college season, all square as they would say at the British Open. After two weeks, Orley and Rick are dead even at 5-4, meaning they have picked one more right than wrong. That would be good against the spread, but they're picking head-up. Which means, of course, chances are they could have done just as well flipping a coin.

It is early in the season, so maybe they'll eventually get into mid-season form. Or, maybe not.

Orley goes first 

Mississippi State at Troy: If you’re a State fan and you have gray hair, this is why. A sucker game, on the road. Who scheduled this? Big win against Auburn, then off into the darkness south of Montgomery … Better be ready. State 28, Troy 17.

Texas at Ole Miss: Tailgating heaven, no question. The Grove will be rockin’. Then the game will start. Hugh Freeze just doesn’t have the bullets to take down the Longhorns. UT 42, UM 17.

East Carolina at Southern Miss: No fun for ECU at South Carolina. No fun for USM at Nebraska. The Golden Eagles get well first, kicking the unforced error blues. USM 28, ECU 24.

Texas A&M at SMU: Have the Aggies already gone back to the Southwest Conference? Is Craig James playing for the Ponies? Wouldn’t matter. That A&M kid QB can get it. Here’s to the SEC … A&M 38, SMU 20.

Florida at Tennessee: Remember when Peyton Manning played quarterback at UT and the Vols could never beat the Gators? That was then and this is now (no, cause and effect are not in play). This is a battle of coaches trying to work their way through the heavy shadows of tradition and back into the limelight. Vols 31, Gators 21.

Rebels look sharp, coached

 

OXFORD — Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Central Arkansas and UTEP bear no resemblance to Arkansas and Mississippi State, and that's not to mention LSU and Alabama. Hugh Freeze's Ole Miss program still faces some growing pains in the lion's den also known as the SEC West.

But, bottom line, Freeze's first team, which defeated UTEP 28-10 here Saturday night, plays with purpose and with a plan. They play hard. Offensively, they are crisp, unpredictable. They don't miss a trick. Defensively, they run to the football and lock up on their tackles. They don't waste timeouts. They get the ball in the hands of their playmakers.

And did I mention they really play hard?

Except for a sluggish third quarter, the Rebels dominated a UTEP team that challenged Oklahoma well into the fourth quarter last week.

Fundamentally, Ole Miss looked so much better than last season or the season before. The Rebels blocked better. They tackled better. They hit harder. They didn't waste timeouts.