OXFORD, Miss. -- They spent all summer going over the schedule, circling the wins, predicting the scores, slapping Snead 4 Heisman bumper stickers on their Range Rovers and making plans for that trip to Atlanta.
SEC Championship Game, here we come.
Nobody cared that the Rebels had never actually been to an SEC Championship Game (they're the only SEC Western Division team that hasn't), and the lack of a Manning on the roster didn't seem to register with anyone, either. Also dismissed: That an offensive lineman and a defensive lineman were both selected in the first round of April's NFL Draft, meaning Ole Miss was down a pro on both sides of the ball.
Hotty Toddy and to hell with all that.
This was going to be The Year at Ole Miss.
And now it's all over, just 34 days after it began.
Alabama spent Saturday doing what schools like Alabama typically do to schools like Ole Miss, i.e., dominate and destroy. The Crimson Tide used a smothering defense and made Jevan Snead look like, well, Jevan Snead (circa 2009) en route to a 22-3 victory at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, and so now the Rebels are 3-2 overall, 1-2 in the SEC and on their way to the Independence Bowl, or something similar.
Perhaps the Liberty Bowl.
Maybe the GMAC.
Either way, what we know for certain is that Ole Miss' dream season is a nightmare.
Folks in this state had waited a generation for something with this much promise, proof being how the No. 8 preseason ranking was the school's highest since 1970. The record for season tickets sold was shattered; Sports Illustrated put the Rebels on one of its preview covers. And then the games began, Snead started throwing picks, and every relevant preseason goal is now off the table.
A National Championship?
Can't happen now.
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No. 3 Alabama 22, No. 23 Ole Miss 3 SB Nation: Alabama | Mississippi |
A BCS bid?
Can't happen now.
An SEC Championship?
Can't happen now.
A first trip to the SEC Championship Game.
Can't. Happen. Now.
"We have to find out what went wrong," said Ole Miss receiver Shay Hodge. "We have to go practice and get better."
The most obvious reason -- but far from the only reason -- for Ole Miss' troubles is the play of Snead, who was once projected as the No. 1 pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. As it stands, Snead wouldn't be the No. 1 pick in the 2010 AFL Draft, his touchdown and interception totals for the season now standing at nine each. To put things in perspective, understand that Tennessee Jonathan Crompton has been a regional punch line and regularly referred to as the worst quarterback in modern UT history. He's been that bad. And yet he still has better statistics than Snead, hard as that might be to believe.
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| Jevan Snead and the Rebels take a severe shot to what was supposed to be their dream season. (US Presswire) |
(My God. I can't believe I just typed that sentence.)
The good news, of course, is that Ole Miss will get another year from Snead; he couldn't possibly leave school early now. But is that also the bad news? And what to make of that SI cover from back in August?
Party Crashers: The Rebels have the firepower to shake up the BCS.
Um, no.
The Rebels have the firepower to get past Memphis, Southeastern Louisiana and Vanderbilt, but not enough firepower to score more than 13 total points in games against South Carolina and Alabama. They got just 212 yards of total offense against Nick Saban's dynamite team, and through the first quarter the Crimson Tide punter actually had -- ready for this? -- seven times as many passing yards as the Ole Miss quarterback. Yes, the Alabama punter (thanks to a seven-yard pass on a fake punt) had seven times as many passing yards in the first quarter as Snead, who was 1 of 5 for one yard. I'd describe it as a slow start, except things never really got better. Some of it was because Alabama has a pro defense, obviously. But much of it was because Snead was simply awful, and his receivers didn't do much to help him, and now it appears this Ole Miss season will be just as average as most Ole Miss seasons.
"I told our guys that this is where we find out what we're really all about," Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said afterward, and he was right.
We definitely found out Saturday what Ole Miss is "really all about."
Not about much.
Or about the same as always.
