MeridianOMRebel wrote:

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So, people can blame the lack of interest on the NCAA if they want, but the bottom line is the University did what the majority of the fanbase didn't want to see happen and pissed off the fanbase.
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It's that culture that had Pete Boone entrenched at Ole Miss, holding the University back. It's that culture that Boone's son going into the IPF and pissing off the players due to his "status" at the University. It's that culture that ran off Tubberville due to refusal to invest in the program.
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Ole Miss and the red and blue glasses fans will continually blame the demise of Ole Miss on the NCAA investigation.  There are other programs who got hammered by the NCAA worst than Ole Miss and they rose to become champions.  Some good examples are Alabama, Penn State, USC and UCF.  These teams recieved major sanctions but elevated themselves back into a competitive level within just a few seasons.  The reason they climbed to a competitive status was because their Administration and fans both wanted and demanded it.  

In the scheme of things, the sanctions at Ole Miss were not so bad.  The bad press and having Luke hired as HC were the worst things that happened from the NCAA investigation.  The second year bowl ban will most likely get appealed.  Losing Freeze was not a big deal because he had peaked as a coach and left the team in shambles when he left.  Most likely he would never have been able to recover to the 2014 and 2015 seasons.  Freeze's narcissistic ego would have and will continually interfere with his coaching abilities.

Meanwhile, Ole Miss just sits in a position of mediocrity and at this time it appears they will stay there.  Ole Miss fans need to get used to be either last or next to last in the SEC West.  Of course Ole Miss will get an occasional upset over a big opponent, but these type of victories will not be sustained on a constant basis.

There is no doubt that Luke could not get the job done as a position coach in all of his seasons at Ole Miss.  The line was generally the weak link of the team.  Luke provided many excuses, including rebuilding, even though he had several seasons to develop the OL.  When Luke was forced on Coach O's staff, he did not want to put in the hours required to being a coach and a good recruiter.  Coach O did not like Luke's work ethic and was preparing to fire him.  Luke saw the writing on the wall and made a call to his buddy Cutcliffe, who found him a position at UT.  Even at UT Luke was not a very effective coach.  He went with Cutcliffe to Duke and was OL and OC/Running Game.  After he left Duke, their running game improved significantly.  So what does all of this prove?  Well, you put the puzzle together and think of it

Choosing Luke as HC at Ole Miss will probably set football back at least five years.  This year was a great opportunity to hire a proven or rising coach to rebuild the Ole Miss team, but once again the GOB intervened, prevailed, and got their choice.  Sadly, even if Ole Miss were to have hired another potentially successful HC, there would have been a political group who tried to interfere and delegate policy to the HC.  Besides having bad seasons, a big reason Coach O was fired from Ole Miss is because he did not bow down to the GOB.  As a result, the GOB network made a statement that Coach O did not fit in with the fan base at Ole Miss.

Tuberville was a good hire.  He had fire in his belly and wanted to win.  Tommy attempted many times to improve facilities and get more money for recruiting, but he had his hands tied by Pete Boobe and the GOB.  Boobe and the administration at Ole Miss continually irritated Tuberville and would not provide him with everything for success as a football team.  As a result of the ineptness of the Ole Miss athletic administration, Tuberville looked for other jobs and left Ole Miss high and dry in the middle of the night on a plane bound for Allbarn.

Hopefully Luke proves the naysayers wrong, but considering the annual competition, the lack of both the administration and fans to compete for championships, and the general political system inside Ole Miss, the Rebels will be a team stuck in mediocrity with an occasional big win.  But don't forget, Ole Miss has the Grove and fans will be able to drink themselves into a stupor and pretend they are the greatest things on the earth.  You know Ole Miss always wins the party!!!

I stopped going to the Grove in 2016. It's not the classy and fun place of old. It's so crowded and trashy that I won't set foot in it anymore. It's miserable to be honest.

One thing to consider is that once Luke and Longo get their players in the system, Ole Miss will probably be back in the Liberty Bowl.  Maybe this trend will continue either annually or every other year.  This will be good for fans of Ole miss since Memphis is a short drive from Oxford.