McCready: Recruiting, stability ensure ride far from over for Freeze, Rebels

NEW ORLEANS – Hugh Freeze stood in Archie Manning’s living room Wednesday night, being toasted by FedEx executive vice president Mike Glenn.

Manning and Glenn were two men who hired Freeze in December 2011. That Ole Miss team went 2-10, losing one blowout after another, dropped a homecoming date to Louisiana Tech and got summarily dismissed in Starkville.

On Friday night, Freeze will coach his second straight New Year’s Six bowl game.

Glenn told Freeze via his toast the Rebels’ success has come three years earlier than he thought possible.

“And if I were to be honest, I would say that too,” Freeze said. “You saw my plan. I thought in Year Three, we’d go to a bowl game. Instead we went to a New Year’s Six. In Year Four, we’re doing it again. I think it’s happened much faster than I thought possible.”

Four-plus years since taking over a program that was college football’s equivalent of a nuclear wasteland, Freeze has turned Ole Miss into one of the most stable programs in the Southeastern Conference.

Think about it. Going into Friday night’s Allstate Sugar Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome against Oklahoma State, Ole Miss is one of five programs playing in its second consecutive access bowl, joining Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State and Michigan State. That’s elite company, a who’s who of college football powerhouses.

In the SEC, Alabama is clearly the league’s gold standard. The Crimson Tide face Michigan State in a national semifinal Thursday night in Arlington, Texas, and Nick Saban’s dominance doesn’t appear to be fading anytime soon. Saban’s defensive coordinator, Kirby Smart, is off to Georgia, and there are NFL rumblings around offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin. It won’t matter; it’s Saban’s program, and as long as he’s around, Alabama will be a major factor in the SEC and national races.

After Alabama, what program is the SEC’s most stable entering 2016? Throw out the programs with first-year coaches (South Carolina, Georgia and Missouri). Of the other 10 programs, at least four _ Auburn, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Vanderbilt _ go into 2016 with coaches very much on the hot seat. Another SEC coach, LSU’s Les Miles, just survived an unsuccessful coup and still doesn’t have a quarterback to build around.

Dan Mullen has done a terrific job at Mississippi State, but Dak Prescott’s career ended Wednesday in the Belk Bowl and Mullen has yet to recruit elite prospects from outside of Mississippi to Starkville. Bret Bielema has done a solid job at Arkansas, and he’s certainly dented Ole Miss’ past two seasons, but the Razorbacks don’t appear to be on a fast track toward conference contention.

That leaves Tennessee, Florida and Ole Miss. All three programs are on the upswing to varying degrees. The Volunteers have recruited at a high level for a few years running, enjoy an SEC East schedule and will enjoy a bump from playing in a New Year’s Day bowl game against Northwestern.

Florida won the SEC East in Jim McElwain’s first season and is recruiting at an elite level (No. 5 in the Rivals.com rankings as of this writing). The Gators are also in a New Year’s Day bowl despite fizzling down the stretch.

Ole Miss, meanwhile, is a win over Oklahoma State away from a 10-win season, a likely top-10 finish and its third bowl win in four years. The Rebels have beaten Alabama in consecutive seasons and has won the Egg Bowl three of the last four years. Chad Kelly, already arguably the SEC’s best quarterback, appears set to return for his senior season. In the last two years, Freeze has lost just one assistant coach, a far cry from some of the mass defections experienced by his contemporaries in the SEC.

“I think we have the most stability and consistency right now as anybody in the SEC West,” Freeze said. “I can’t speak for the East. Obviously Alabama still has consistency with Nick at the top, but they’ve had a turnover with a coordinator and that is kind of a change, but if you just look around at some of the things that are going on, I would say you’d be hard-pressed to say anyone was more consistent than we’ve been.”

Freeze said three of his staff had chances to leave this year, one year after former linebacker coach Tom Allen left for the defensive coordinator job at South Florida. They elected to stay for two reasons, Freeze said.

“The atmosphere we’ve created is really good to work in for a coach,” Freeze said. “Two, we have a commitment from the administration to make sure our guys are taken care of. And I think they believe like I that we can do something special here.”

That’s certainly happening on the recruiting trail. Shea Patterson, the nation’s top high school quarterback as ranked by Rivals.com, will report to Oxford in January as one of the headliners of a signing class that is currently ranked No. 1 nationally by Rivals.

“The Ole Miss brand has come so far,” Freeze said. “I will forever be indebted to the Robert Nkemdiches and Laquon Treadwells and Laremy Tunsils and the other kids too who have done a remarkable job. All the kids who choose to come with you, you’re indebted to. But that (class) was an eye-opener to some of the nation’s best players. Then to have success on the field, to be in two consecutive New Year’s Six games, the Ole Miss brand has just grown.

“We’re in homes now. If you follow recruiting, you see that many of the top players in the nation are listing us as one of their finalists. That’s the way you continue to build. Our coaches do a really nice job of building relationships. I think we work as hard as any staff in America at recruiting and we have a university that is easy to sell once you get them on campus.”

Freeze has never wavered from his plan. Ole Miss, he said on his first day on the job, needed to have a unique approach to compete with behemoths such as Alabama, Auburn and LSU.

“There are a lot of kids that we’ve identified that fit with us,” Freeze said. “They fit with our core values. Our family atmosphere is similar to their family atmosphere at their home. We think that’s kind of our niche. That’s where I have a shot at winning their recruiting battles. With some, I can tell you from the start, ‘I have no chance at winning that battle against certain schools,’ but give us one that is very familiar with the atmosphere we have within our building and we get them on campus, we have a really good shot at being in at the end.

“And there are a lot of people that are made like me who want to do something new and fresh.”

The key to building a perpetually elite program, at least in this writer’s opinion, is stability and consistent recruiting at a very high level. No program in the SEC puts those two elements together better than Alabama. At this point, there’s no questioning that.

But Ole Miss is probably next. Some would argue and have argued the Rebels’ window of contention closes with the imminent departures of Treadwell, Tunsil and Nkemdiche. However, Freeze’s recruiting prowess makes it just as likely, if not more so, that the Rebels reload rather than rebuild.

“Man for man, (Ole Miss) could be the most talented team in the country,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said Thursday.

“The answer is have the best players,” Freeze said. “We coaches are pretty dang good when we have the best players. I’m trying to convince a group of young men that if enough of you quality individuals and players come together to Ole Miss, I think we can do pretty special things.”

Further, Freeze will soon have a recruiting tool he hasn’t previously had at his disposal. Treadwell, Nkemdiche and Tunsil are all projected as first-round NFL draft picks. It’s a selling point he’s already using on the recruiting trail.

“This is the first class I recruited that’s eligible for the draft,” Freeze said. “Anytime you (produce NFL players), it gives validity to what I’m telling these other recruits. ‘Here’s the plan I put in place for these guys, here’s exactly what happened and it can happen for you too.’”

Sure, Ole Miss could take a step back next season. The Rebels will field an awfully young team. However, the 2014 and 2015 classes were much deeper than the top-heavy 2013 class. The 2016 class will likely get headlines because of the coveted prospects at the top of the list, but its strength is found in its depth.

Winning in modern college football isn’t about tradition, exposure or facilities. With rare exception, every Power Five school has plenty of all of that. No, winning these days is built on stability and recruiting, and right now, outside of Alabama, no school in the SEC combines those elements better than Ole Miss.

“I expect that to continue with hopefully how we’re going to continue to recruit and continue to build our program,” Freeze said. “There’s an expectation now that we should be competitive and relevant in the SEC West.”