OXFORD – Turnover on the Ole Miss coaching staff didn’t come often for Hugh Freeze, but it came in a wave following the 2016 season.

Freeze had five spots to fill and responded with what he thought were dynamic recruiters.

How long they recruit for Ole Miss is up in the air, but assistant coaches old and new say they’re staying grounded amid the uncertainty.

Freeze’s July 20 resignation resulted in an interim coach situation, the third in modern history for Ole Miss.

Matt Luke, who has spent 14 years at Ole Miss as a player and assistant coach, has 12 games to convince the administration to keep him as head coach.

“My intention is to work my behind off every single day to help Matt Luke get the head coaching job here at Ole Miss and then go from there,” said tight ends coach Maurice Harris, who followed Freeze from Arkansas State in 2012.

There’s been a great deal of speculation as to who might be the Rebels’ next head coach, although vice chancellor for athletics Ross Bjork has not fielded questions on the subject.

If Luke is retained he’ll have the opportunity, as all coaches do, to review his staff and consider changes.

New assistant coaches who were hired by someone else may reevaluate their own situations, and any new head coach hired will have the opportunity to put together his own staff.

Ole Miss assistants say the future is not on their minds as camp gets under way.

“You get in your car and drive to the grocery store, and you don’t know the future,” defensive line coach Freddie Roach said. “Whatever our routine is we do it, and we never think about, ‘What if that car pulls out in front of me?’ I’m not a what-if guy. I’m not concerned about any of that.”

Roach, an All-SEC linebacker at Alabama, is in his first job as a position coach at an FBS school. Wide receivers coach Jacob Peeler, a native of Kosciusko, is in his second.

Linebackers coach Bradley Dale Peveto has been coaching since the late 1980s and has had two stints at LSU.

Defensive coordinator Wesley McGriff, who coached the 2013 season on Freeze’s staff, has head coach aspirations.

Freeze gave offensive coordinator Phil Longo a shot, he said, because of the creativity he showed at smaller levels of college football. Longo says he felt at ease during his interview at Ole Miss.

“There was a feeling I had in the hallway getting to know the players and sitting for half a day with the offensive staff, just my instincts said, ‘This is a good place.’ I wasn’t wrong.”

Longo says he’s been impressed by the “resiliency” of the players. As of yet, none have transferred.

The key moving forward is getting recruits to feel the same way.

There have been several departures from a class of verbal commitments that, amid an NCAA investigation, was already not highly ranked. Luke was upbeat about recruiting in his Wednesday press conference.

“Ole Miss sells itself. They like what we’ve done, and they’ve seen tangible evidence of us being really good,” he said.

Peveto and McGriff have been noted for their recruiting success. Freeze called Roach and Peeler “rising stars” in talent procurement.

In college football, assistant coaches are a transient group. Recruiting and looking to the future are part of the job description.

Ole Miss coaches say the most important thing they can do this season is focus on the present.

“If I took any other mentality I’d be short-changing these guys,” Harris said.