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The script almost always changes by the time the leaves turn, fall and get blown away.
Injuries happen. Players emerge out of nowhere, and some counted on to do big things do a little less or not much at all. It’s the way a college football season goes.
And there’s no doubt the stakes have risen the past few seasons at Ole Miss. That’s what a taste of success can do, and landmark victories like the one Ole Miss staged last fall in Tuscaloosa over eventual national champion Alabama help, too.
Chad Kelly was enormous that Saturday night, throwing for 341 yards and three touchdowns, as the Rebels showed a national television audience what they could eventually become under Hugh Freeze. So it’s no surprise Kelly leads our spring cleaning list of the three players who will be most key to ensuring the Rebels keep trending upward this fall.
QB Chad Kelly
Call it way too predictable if you’d like. But in this case, Kelly being the Kelly that Ole Miss fans came to love in 2015 is absolutely vital to the Rebels possibly being great and not just “good, with potential.”
Kelly recently had surgery to repair a sports hernia, but he is expected to be ready to go for fall camp, according to the Clarion Ledger.
The Rebels certainly hope so.
In his first season, Kelly became the third SEC quarterback in history to throw for 4,000 yards — he finished with 4,042 — earned All-SEC second-team honors and became the first Ole Miss player to win Sugar Bowl MVP since Archie Manning in 1970.
His continued progression as a senior this fall will (or won’t) be a reason Ole Miss becomes a national title contender and not just a nice, improving program in the shadows of mighty Alabama and LSU.
“It feels great to be a part of a winning team for a school with such a rich history,” Kelly told the Buffalo News in January after deciding to stay in Oxford. “But I realize that there’s still a lot of learning and growing that I can do with this team. It will take the hard work and commitment of everyone involved, but I believe that we have a committed coaching staff and some of the best players in college football. I can’t wait to see what we can do together in 2016.”
Quite simply, Kelly’s importance to this season and this program can’t be ignored, in part because the Rebels don’t have a proven player behind him. Jason Pellerin and touted signee Shea Patterson are the only other scholarship quarterbacks on the roster.
Some even believe Kelly can be a Heisman Trophy candidate. But there is no question that for Ole Miss to do a little better than even a Sugar Bowl victory, Kelly will be the key, and then the rest of the Rebels will follow.
DE Marquis Haynes
The second-biggest piece to the Rebels’ puzzle in 2016 could very well be Haynes. The junior from Jacksonville had 10 sacks last fall after getting 7.5 the year before as a freshman.
Another bump in sacks could very follow this fall and, like Kelly on offense, a guy like Haynes needs to be great if the Rebels want to be great.
There’s just no getting around that, April guessing game or not. Haynes has steadily built himself into one of the best players on the Rebels defense over the past two seasons, starting with that All-SEC freshman year in which he set a school freshman record for sacks, and a dropoff by one of its building blocks from 2014 and 2015 probably means 2016 doesn’t end with Ole Miss fulfilling its preseason potential.
This was Haynes even before last season: “My first year I was real nervous,” he told scout.com. “You grow up watching Alabama, LSU, and you never think of being in the same game as them like that, on the same field. I’m not really nervous anymore. I’m ready to just go out there and do what I know I can do best.”
Notice how Haynes mentioned Bama and LSU, who have been the two “big brothers” of the SEC West for seemingly forever now. It’s a totally driven guy like Haynes, who admittedly doesn’t lead by talking but by doing, who can possibly elevate Ole Miss, at last, into big brother status.
CB Tony Bridges
So while Haynes tries to lead the Rebels’ defense up front, the back end’s survival amid the losses of versatile defensive back Mike Hilton and safety Trae Elston could fall to a guy like Bridges, a senior cornerback who made several big plays in the Sugar Bowl demolition of Oklahoma State that was the final precursor to all the lofty expectations for this fall.
Bridges clearly isn’t afraid of the big stage, with his pick-six of Dak Prescott in the Egg Bowl helping the Rebels beat their rivals and finish a 9-3 regular season.
If Kelly, Haynes and the Bridges of the Rebels’ world fulfill or surpass expectations, Ole Miss’ steady climb to perennial SEC West contender won’t be coming to any kind of halt in 2016.
Cory Nightingale, a sports copy editor at the Miami Herald, lives for Saturdays. He especially enjoys the pageantry, tradition and history of SEC football.
