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Freeze on Vandy: ‘They tend to get up extremely high for us’
By Ethan Levine
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In anticipation of the lone SEC matchup of the weekend, Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze was asked about his program’s annual rivalry with this weekend’s opponent, Vanderbilt.
The Rebels and Commodores will play for the 88th time since 1894 when they face-off at LP Field in Nashville on Saturday. Ole Miss leads the all-time series 48-38-2, and escaped with a 39-35 win in the final minute of last year’s opening weekend classic.
But Vanderbilt has beaten the Rebels in six of their last nine meetings, and Freeze expects a fight from the ‘Dores when they take the field Saturday.
“They tend to get up extremely high for us, and it means a lot being in such close proximity and recruiting a lot of the same kids in the Tennessee area that we recruit in. So it means certainly a lot to both programs,” Freeze said on Wednesday’s SEC coaches’ teleconference.
The Commodores lost 37-7 in Vanderbilt Stadium last Thursday night, but to be fair, a lengthy weather delay killed any opening night mood to be had on the VU campus. The Commodores will have another chance to throw a Nashville party when their arch-rivals from the SEC West come to town, and another week to prepare and gather themselves may have done them some good.
That said, it might be the Rebels who have the home-field advantage at LP Field, which is actually home to the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.
As Freeze eluded to, Nashville also serves as a home away from home for many Ole Miss supporters, which not only benefits the Rebels in recruiting, but in attendance when they’re on the road against Vanderbilt.
“This will be my first experience playing (Vandy) there,” Freeze said of playing in LP Field. “In our bowl game (the 2013 Music City Bowl) we certainly traveled well to that field, and our fans always travel so I expect that we’ll have a good representation there.”
It might be tough to follow last season’s nail-biter, but it would also be tough for the Commodores to under-achieve worse than they did last week against the Owls. Despite no other SEC team scheduling an opponent from a power conference this weekend, the Rebels and Commodores are far from the lowest spread in Las Vegas. Vanderbilt essentially has nothing to lose in its SEC opener.
Freeze and the Rebels do, and the head coach understands the circumstances. He’ll be relying on past experience and thorough preparation to claim a conference win on the road.
“We’ve had two phenomenal games with them, and when I was an assistant here had some good ones also,” Freeze said of playing Vandy as a coach at Ole Miss. “It’s been very competitive and they’ve always played us tough up there, for whatever reason.
A former newspaper reporter who has roamed the southeastern United States for years covering football and eating way too many barbecue ribs, if there is such a thing.
