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Merry Christmas to all. And my present to my three readers will hopefully be the 2007 football awards. Stay tuned.

Sports Wookie Exclusive

Many are wondering what former Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron is up to after being fired. It appears he's not unemployed as this Sports Wookie exclusive seems to confirm his current whereabouts somewhere in the Mississippi Sound.

Coaching Changes

The Rebels have a new coach in Houston Nutt whose a prove winner in the SEC. Nutt has his flaws. A little texting scandal involving an unattractive news reporter and difficulty developing a passing game. But he's a coach that's won in the SEC, more importantly the SEC west getting to Atlanta a few times. And while Arkansas has more money thanks to some high profile boosters the state of Arkansas doesn't produce the talent that Mississippi does. So its a pretty even situation. He's also always had dominate running games. The Reverend Nutt's a solid recruiter but not spectacular. He does a great job of developing the talent he brings in. And his players loved to play for him. Which wasn't the case for his predecessor in Oxford. But then if I wrote everything he was better at then Eddie I'd run out of room on the blog.

He's also a little crazy. But CRAZY LIKE A FOX! Which is fun. And the Red Fox is the state mammal of Mississippi so that has to be a good sign.

The true test is how does he compare with the rest of the SEC. Because beating the pants off of Eddie doesn't mean anything. High school coaches, err church league coaches could do that. I hate to do a 1-12 ranking of the coaches because its really more of a tiered approach. If you have a flaw your relatively equal to another with just one different but single flaw. The only easy thing is that Fat Phil Fulmer is 12th. No one in the country gets less out of more than Fulmer. He's the anti-Jim Grobe. He can recruit and Cut calls a solid game offensively. But this is what makes the SEC so tough because the leagues worst coach has won a title.

I made this graph to illustrate the coaches respective rankings.(click to enlarge)

In the same spirit I researched into the respective wives of the SEC coaches and created the SEC Coaches Wives Index seen below. The idea spawned from Deep South Sport's rankings of the top five wives a few years ago. I couldn't find a picture or even evidence that Jeri Croom actually exists. So I'm operating under a theory that she really is Jeri Ryan and is never around during football season because she's in Hollywood filming Shark with James Woods. Have to say some of the coaches, ahem Saban, that came in low on the index really surprised me. Especially ones that are know as great recruiters, ahem Saban. The Coaching changes in the last couple of years also really hurt the index because Mike Shula's wife would have easily come in second behind Jeri Croom-Ryan. Vicky Fulmer gets a little bump for having an attractive daughter and older pictures. They last few years have been rough in Vol nation.

(click to enlarge)

State Recap

Well the Egg is back in Oxford but the Rebels were the big winners Thanksgiving weekend. What is funny now is to see how fast the Eddie apologist, including our friend from Canada, now say he needed to be fired.

(Pictures from The Clarion Ledger)

THE GOOD

For three quarters the Rebels whipped the Bulldogs. They showed they had the players to win. They have a lot of returning talent for next year. Some of the young players stepped up and had a really good game like freshman safety Johnny Brown. Next year the Rebels will have a lot of holes but have enough players that with good coaching they can win some games next year.

The game also saw the end of the Eddie Era after he blew a 14 point lead late in the fourth quarter. Of course it all worked out in the end because he was fired in less than 24 hours. So to all my State friends and acquaintances, including the fine chap who introduced me to the Lady Wookie, thank you for making this happen. Rebel Nation can't thank you enough.

THE BAD

After playing well for three quarters and pitching a shut out the Rebel defense let it slip in the fourth. A lot of this was because the momentum clearly shifted after Eddie's disastrous call to go for it in his own territory on fourth down. Predictably the call didn't work and State managed to see their first offensive production of the game and marched down the field to score.


The Rebels also had plenty of chances to hold onto the game due after allowing State to score. If the Rebels could have achieved a few first downs they could have run out the clock to win. State even tried to give it away when their true freshman quarterback Wesley Carroll threw a redzone pick on their second to last drive. However the Rebel receivers could not hold onto the ball and make the big catch when they had to make it. If the receivers make these crucial third down catches the Rebs win the game easily.

THE UGLY

As it has been through out the Eddie Era special teams were the Rebels final undoing. After appearing to lock up the game with Ashlee Palmer's interception the Rebels allow a punt return touchdown to tie the game. Besides from the lack of coverage the most hideous thing was the punt itself. Needing to back the bulldogs up as much as possible the Rebels punt the ball about 8 feet in the air in a line about 30 yards right at the Derek Pegues, the Bulldog return man, with less than a second hang time. The Rebels never had a chance to cover the punt and Pegues was able to split right through and into the endzone easily. This punt singlehandedly lost the game and was the worst special teams display since Jonathan Nichols missed two gimme field goals against LSU in '03.

I hope with a real coach coming to Oxford he'll be able to manage the special teams and turn it into a strength. Hopefully force the opponent to start the game deeper than the 35 after a kickoff occasionally.

LSU Recap

I'm sure y'all have all been wondering, "now why don't he write?"

Well I couldn't watch the LSU game so I arranged for a guest commentator. I then waited for a while for the guest commentator because I didn't want to leave it out. Then I became a slacker, got to excited about Houston Nutt's hiring that I spent my time reading articles about him and neglected the site. I apologize to all three of my readers.

Anyway when the BatDave gets around to re-caping the game I'll fill it in below: