re: Ole Miss, Auburn or Arkansas?

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My reasoning ? I'm a huge homer.

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This reasoning has served me well for many years.

I'd say auburn but if saban beats gus consecutively they'll boot his arse. I'll go with ol miss.


Not that they'll be a west contender, but they will be slightly better than state and remain there. They like to settle for average coaches in mississippi. They'll boot the bad ones. But keep the ones who keep em off the bottom.

Arky has been replaced by ATM

LSU out played Alabama and should have won

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LSU out played Alabama and should have won

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Alabama outplayed LSU on 11/5 and should have one.

The W is all that matters and on 11/5 LSU got the W and on 11/3 Bama got the W.

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I'm not sold on Malzahn.

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Me neither, he hasn't done anything that indicates he will be a successful head coach.

Arkansas is taking a multi-year gamble that I don't think will work. If it does, and they figure out how to out-Bama Bama, that will be huge for them, but I just don't see it happening. For the record, such a victory for Ark would not be unambiguously bad for Ole Miss and Auburn. It would split the talent that fits that system and keep any of the 3 (Ark/Bama/LSU) from amassing the kind of talent that Bama has recently. I just don't see it happening.

We'll see with Auburn. I think Malzahn will be good enough to avoid anything like what happened at Auburn this year, but he's basically a less intelligent Hugh Freeze. I think Ole Miss is above Auburn in the pecking order for the foreseeable future.

Hugh Freeze, at his core, is a strategist and is probably the smartest coach in the SEC. It's hard to see if you aren't very familiar with him. I fricking hated the hire when we made it, but about halfway through the season I started to recognize that he was playing chess out there. He didn't have the depth to have a chance against the teams we lost to, but he out-schemed every single coach we played. There's a reason Saban started bitching about the up-tempo offense the day after the Ole Miss game. It's been around for years, but if Freeze hadn't been playing with considerably less talent about about 30% fewer players than Bama, he'd have beaten Saban, and I think Saban knew it. We led TAMU and LSU very late in those games, and lost purely because the defense was gassed. Understandable, considering that we went to Baton Rouge with something like 57 scholarship players.

Freeze is my favorite kind of coach. He's not someone who's convinced himself that he knows how to do it because of experience. I'm pretty sure he didn't even play college ball. He went to a CC for 2 years before getting a math degree from USM. He was a teacher first and coach second. All of this comes together to create someone who sees coaching as a strategy game, and given similar talent, those guys will always beat the guys who believe they've learned the game, as opposed to having figured it out.

The good news for Ole Miss is that talent acquisition is a strategy game as well, and Freeze has proven that he's good at it. We won't have a top 5 class every year, but we won't be running around trying to win in the SEC with 57 players anymore either. Let Freeze get the players he needs for his system, and I like his chances against anyone in the country on any given Saturday.

Ole Miss hasn't exactly been a sleeping giant like TAMU or like LSU was in the 90s, but we've been a sleeping pretty big dude. With a good coach and an administration that finally gets it, we have more going for us than Ark or Auburn.

Going forward, I see Bama/LSU remaining at the top, TAMU coming up next, then Ole Miss. Auburn/Ark after that, and State in the cellar, especially with the difficulty they'll have with Ole Miss finally waking up. It's pretty much a zero-sum game between those two programs.

As we know, though, regardless of how things are over the long run, in any given year, any school that isn't long-run lower tier has a shot at winning the division. It just won't happen very often. I wouldn't be shocked to see Ole Miss make it to Atlanta once or twice in the next decade. Same goes for TAMU, with Bama/LSU splitting the rest.

There are very little difference in the talent that all these schools recruit yet kids must either be power football players or spread players. The reality is we all want the same top level athletes and then we'll condition them and train them once they get here to fit the system. The talent splitting is no different than before.

Arkansas comes out best of this whole deal. only situation where we lose out is if malzahn and bielema both suck.

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beth(beth(omega))

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Aint nobody got time to read that.

It's not that bad but I'm an OM fan

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but we've been a sleeping pretty big dude.

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This is gold

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we have more going for us than Ark or Auburn.

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This is even better.


You guys went 3-5 in the SEC with wins over 2 dumpster fires in Auburn(41-20) and Ark.(30-27) and a win over MSU in the egg bowl. I wouldnt claim the "awakening" just yet. I know you recruited well this year but you need to remember the Orgeron years and the fact that both Auburn and Arkansas dwarf you in facilities and budget money.