I can only hope he will bring this outfit to Oxford.
When I first heard "reliable" rumors that Houston Nutt was probably going to be the next coach at Ole Miss, my first reaction was a shrug of the shoulders followed by an "Eh, we could do worse." Granted, the man had tremendous success at Arkansas, a school long removed from the national power scene and one located in a less than desirable recruiting area. But this was also the same guy that the majority of Arkansas fans were one more text message to a news anchor away from burning him in effigy. Put more simply, his act and off the field problems reached a boiling point with the fans.
Now that I've had some time to digest the news that the craziest, most emotional coach in the SEC West will in fact be in Oxford next fall, I'm not sure I could be more excited. Ole Miss finally found the proven head coach we were looking for three years ago when we instead hired a DEFENSIVE LINE COACH. Really, look it up. A defensive line coach with not even a breath of coordinator experience. Houston Nutt has 15 years experience has a HEAD COACH with eleven of those years being a Division I coach. Mathematicians haven't invented a number high enough to accurately explain the numerical quality hire percentage difference between the two hires (For the record, I don't know how you calculate quality hire percentage, I just made it up.)
What Ole Miss gets in Houston Nutt is a coach that's spent the last 10 years not just in the SEC, but in the very same division in which we play. I think it's safe to say he has his fingers on the pulse of the SEC and the Western division, which leads me to my next point. Other than getting adjusted to Ole Miss' half ass ways and his new team, there should be no major adjustment period. He already knows what it takes to win in the SEC. Now I'm not saying Ole Miss is going to come out and win eight games next year, but I can guarantee we won't see any of the Mickey Mouse coaching we've grown accustomed to over the past three years. Houston Nutt himself may remind you of Mickey Mouse at times, but not his coaching.
I don't expect him to be running off nine win season after nine win season. That's unrealistic. Ole Miss now has a guy that can win six or seven games a year consistently with an occasional nine to ten win season thrown in when everything falls into the right place. (And at this point I'd probably start sacrificing body parts just to get back to Shreveport. The bidding starts at two toes for Shreveport and for a BCS game, I'll go as high as a kidney. You only need one to live, right?) If you're asking anything more than that from an Ole Miss coach in this day of college football (especially in the SEC), you're crazy. So I embrace Houston Nutt and his potential traveling side show. Now, if you want to name a better choice (realistic) for Ole Miss, please attempt to do so. While you're doing that, I'm off to go stand in line for the first edition of "The Nutt House" t-shirt.
