After months of offseason speculation involving a NCAA investigation of the program, the Ole Miss football team is ready to get down to the business of playing games on the field.
No. 11 Ole Miss will open the regular season at 7 p.m. Monday against No. 4 Florida State (ESPN) in Orlando, Florida.
Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze met the media Monday and was bubbling with the usual game-week optimism.
“We have a tremendous task,” Freeze said. “It is a difficult task, but we relish this opportunity. It gives our football team a chance to play on a national stage against one of the top teams in American. That’s the kind of games we want to be in and we have an opportunity to expand our brand at Ole Miss and hopefully go and compete at a high level on that given night.”
Ole Miss is expected to receive a ruling of potential sanctions from the NCAA early in 2017. What that deadline still looming, players and coaches are focused on making the most of a team picked to contend for the Southeastern Conference Western Division title.
With the NFL starting a week later, Ole Miss and Florida State will take advantage of the fact they will play the only game scheduled for the holiday in the finale of the opening weekend of the regular season.
“It should be very exciting,” Freeze said. “We should have all the eyes of the nation upon us and we get to represent our great university and our great conference. One of these power five matchups against, again, one of the top teams in our country this year. They are super talented, maybe one of the fastest teams I’ve watched defensively.
“They have a lot of returners on both side of the football. Offensively, tailback is a special, special player, (Dalvin) Cook is really, really good, (Travis) Rudolph and (Jesus) Wilson, and (Kermit) Whitfield are all returners that caught, I think, over 50 balls each. They’ve got balance and good players all around. The offensive line returns. They have a talented quarterback (Deondre Francois), who is going to start the game.”
Freeze said the team has eliminated off-the-field distractions while preparing for the season.
“I didn’t know we had adversity,” Freeze said. “I have said this a hundred times, our players are the priority. They have zero to do with whatever the noise is. They should be the focus, and they should be the priority, and that is what motivates me. All of the talk, or whatever, is about a kid or kids that don’t play here anymore, and these young men chose to come to this university to continue to build a program, and when I look at them I don’t think about the noise. I think about what I owe them to get them ready to play.”
Freeze said a game against an opponent like Florida State will help the team prepare for an eight-game SEC schedule.
“I would probably feel maybe a little different if it wasn’t the opening game, where there are so many unknowns,” Freeze said. “We are replacing a lot of players, and you’re not quite sure how your kids are going to perform in those environments against this talented of a team. There’s no doubt I think we have a football team that’s capable of competing against anyone in the nation this year.
“I am always going to be confident in that, but there are a lot of unknowns going into week one when you are playing who most have picked to be in the college football playoffs this year, and I see why when I see their tapes. This conference does prepare you. We have been in some good games, some good battles. We will be ready. Our kids won’t run away from it, they are going to show up and play.”
Freeze feels like his team will learn a lot from the opener.
“I think from top to bottom it is one of the better teams we’ve ever played in my tenure here,” Freeze said. “It’s going to be a great challenge, but also a great opportunity.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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