State of Depression

Athletic Director Pete Boone this past Monday
at Houston Nutt's press conference

Embarrassed. Disgusted. Angry. Miserable. These are just some of the feelings that I was having this past Saturday as I sat in a not-so-crowded Vanderbilt Stadium painfully enduring the lowest point of my life as it pertains to Ole Miss football. Some of you might be saying to yourself, "No way that was the worst, Matthew. Surely there have been lower times over the years. I mean Vandy is still an SEC team." Well let me give you a little background for starters.

I have been going to Ole Miss football games since I was 5 years old, and I mean I have been to many many games. At the present time I have not missed a home game since the seventh grade. I have seen some incredible wins and I have seen the worst of the worst when it comes to losses. In 2003 I was there when we played LSU in Oxford for a spot in the SEC title game only to watch the Groza Award winner that year miss two field goals doubling the amount he'd missed all season. I was in Oxford in 2005 when we lost by ten points to a Wyoming team who won 4 games that season in the Mountain West Conference. I was there when we hosted the mighty Demons of Northwestern State in 2007 and had to hold them off at the end of the fourth quarter for an uneasy 7 point victory. I was there three weeks later in beautiful Starkville, MS as I watched us blow a 14 point lead in the 4th quarter in under 8 minutes to our hated rival resulting in us going winless in conference play that season. Just last season I was in the stands as we blew a 31-10 halftime lead to lowly Jacksonville State losing in double-overtime. But none of that compares to what I had to go through this past Saturday in Nashville. I've been embarressed by teams in the SEC before, all of them. I've seen Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn and LSU among others kick our ass and run us out of the stadium several times before. But, when you get run out of Vanderbilt's 3/4 packed football stadium, you have truly gone through a humbling experience.

At the present moment my beloved alma mater is at a major crossroads as a football program. Over the last ten seasons we have seen moderate success going to four bowl games and winning them all against the likes of Nebraska, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State twice. But, is that good enough? Hell no it's not! It's time to compete with the rest of the SEC. The real question is, what is the source of the problem? What is the reason why we can't excel at more of a national level and compete for conference championships while doing so?

I think Orgeron used more than
energy drinks to fuel his fire

Let's start by taking a look at our last 3 head coaches. David Cutcliffe came in with a great staff that put together a couple of solid recruiting classes and reeled in Eli Manning which was his obvious highlight. He won a few bowl games but his recruiting never matched up to the rest of the conference and his success was limited. Cutcliffe was a solid coach who, at point, had solid assistant coaches around him, but after a 4 win campaign in 2004, he was let go. Next up our administration wanted to go off the radar a bit and take a chance on a guy without head coaching experience. In walks Ed Orgeron, the picture to the left speaks for itself. Known for his top notch recruiting, Orgeron was on the other end of the coaching spectrum from Cutcliffe. The Orgeron years were, how can I say this kindly, absolutely God awful miserable! Apparently you actually have to coach the players after you recruit them, who knew? As most Ole Miss fans already know, it was painfully hard to watch a coach bring in the right players and then not know how to coach them to wins. So after a disastorous 2007 season and compiling no conference wins he was shown the door. At that point our administration knows the fans are on the ropes so a top hire was needed.

In comes Houston Nutt, a proven head coach who kicked our ass for many years while at Arkansas. I'll have to admit, I was just excited as the next person. What more could you ask for? We now had a guy leading our team who had been to Atlanta twice, hey that's two more than we've ever had the joy of participating in. Everything seemed to fit, he looked the part, he talked the part, hell after his introduction as the head coach he had me motivated and ready to play college football myself! Next thing you know we are beating Florida in the Swamp, Arkansas at Fayetteville, LSU in Tiger Stadium and MS State 45-0 prior to kicking a top 10 teams ass in the Cotton Bowl. We had it all, what is there to argue about? The 2009 season came and went, while we saw success with 9 wins and another bowl victory true Rebel fans will tell you it was a disappointing season that did not live up to expectations with the team we had in place.

Since then we have a grand total of 1 conference wins and a few embarrassing losses that leave me disgusted and angry. So let's go back to the question I posed above; what is the source of the problem? Well I have two people to blame and I'm sure you can guess who they are: Houston Nutt and our wonderful (sarcastic) Athletic Director Pete Boone. Let me give my opinions on Houston Nutt first. During his first two seasons he won and every single Ole Miss fan could not look at anything beyond that because we didn't want to. We didn't care that he wasn't recruiting the best players in the state, we overlooked the team dismissals and suspensions all because he was winning. When you win games nobody asks questions and that's how our fan base was dring the '08 and '09 seasons, me included. After an awful 2010 season things started becoming a little more clear about Nutt but me and others chalked it up to just a bad season and we needed to move on. Now after the disaster in  Nashville last Saturday it's all clear.

Nutt lost the majority of the fanbase, including me, after a
second straight loss to Vandy in Nashville Saturday

There is absolutely no reason on this Earth why Houston Nutt should be the coach to lead the Rebels out of the tunnel next September. People can argue with me all you want on this topic, but I assure you that you are wrong. Watching Houston's press conference after the loss Saturday I saw a man who was defeated, embarrased, and quite frankly just tired. Houston has been a head coach in this league for a long time, 14 years now I believe. But my problem doesn't lie with his tenure in the conference. My problem is that he is not a Rebel. End of story. Houston Nutt is not a Rebel and never will be. After leaving Arkansas he did what was best for himself and that was to stay in the most powerful conference in America and take our opening as head coach. Smart choice for him, not so much for us. Houston is an Arkansas guy through and though. Born and raised in Arkansas, loved in Arkansas, played and coached in Arknsas and I guarantee you when his time here is over he will spend the rest of his days on a ranch in Arkansas. That's not what we need at Ole Miss. We need someone who wants to be here, who wants to prove themselves as a head coach and wants to do so as an Ole Miss Rebel. I firmly believe that Nutt is not that guy nor does he really want to be. If there was ever a time to make a change for the better and build towards the future we must do so behind a coach who is a leader, one that can surround himself with top assistant coaches, and who is ready to prove he is a winner and that Ole Miss can get back to winning ways.

Nutt should've known from Day 1 that this was Pete
Boone's house and he wasn't giving it up

For quite some time now Pete Boone has been on the proverbial hot seat as it is so clearly thought of today. The time has come and there is no beating around the bush on this one, for Pete Boone to go. I firmly believe that he has done some great things here at Ole Miss but his time running our Athletic Department is up. Time for me to cut the BS. Pete Boone is a nuisance. He is like your hot date's friend being a third wheel preventing you from getting what you want. Our fans are tired of him, hell even our coaches are tired of him. Rumors have circled through Oxford numerous times before of confrontations between our top sport coaches and Boone. Boone has been nickel and diming this University about as much as you possibly can, not letting our teams fly to game destinations when they should and that's just the beginning of the problems. That is unacceptable, completely unacceptable! The Athletic Director is supposed to be your coaches best friend plain and simple. He is supposed to work hand in hand with the coaches of the university and provide them with the tools and resources it takes to be successful. Boone is not doing that. He should be on a friendly relationship basis with alumni especially the ones who give a great deal of their hard earned money to our program. Boone is failing in this department as well. When other fans and coaches around the southeast and country for that matter know your athletic director is dragging your program down and coaches do not want to coach here because of him then you know you have a major problem. I see other schools with athletic directors giving full support to their football coaches and then I turn around and watch Boone show to the Ole Miss world and once again prove to me that he holds all the power when he crashed the party at Nutt's weekly Monday press conference. Whatever Nutt had before that wonderful event is now gone and he is just a puppet in Boone's illustrious show.

Do I believe that Pete Boone loves Ole Miss with all his heart? Yes I do. Am I happy with the things he has done for Ole Miss? Yes I am. I think most Ole Miss fans would agree with me on both accounts. They would also agree with me when I say that the time has come to expect better from our football program. It is time to get rid of the old and get some new Rebel blood in here and put them in the position to lead us back into light. The people are out there and I believe many of them want to be here, the time is now to pony up and put an athletic director in office that is willing to do whatever tit takes to win championships, period. We as Ole Miss fans should expect to compete for a victory in every single game we play, not to lose to Vanderbilt 5 out of 7 games. That is unnacceptable and unless we do what is necessary it will only get worse. It is time for our Administration to look at themselves and realize that thay have to step aside for the good of the program and get Ole Miss back to where it should be.

But, at the end of the day, no matter how dark and bleak it looks I will always support The University of Mississippi and the Ole Miss Rebels athletics program. Nothing in this world can come between my love for this university and it's athletics and nothing ever will. I'm one of the biggest die hard Rebel fans you'll ever meet and nothing will ever change that. Not even if we lose to Vandy again next year.