New Year, New Crew

By Tyler Slay @slaytyler

Things change quickly in college football. The TCU team that beat the snot out of the Rebels on New Year's Eve was 4-8 last year. The Horned Frogs were one questionable playoff committee decision away from being national title contenders this year (we know this better than most).

How about the national college football news in just the past several days? The SEC won't win a national championship for the second straight year. Manny Diaz is going to be Mississippi State's defensive coordinator under Dan Mullen for a second time, and Georgia added offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer from the St. Louis Rams.

Jeff Driskel, Florida's beleaguered quarterback, will play his final season at Louisiana Tech, while Braxton Miller and Everett Golson are rumored to be transferring to every major program in the country. Everyone who predicted these things to happen a month ago raise your hand.

{no hands}

The college football world moves fast.

There's a lot of movement going on in the Ole Miss football world as well. I'Tavius Mathers, Mark Dodson and David Kamara are all transferring for an opportunity to get more playing time at other schools. Dodson, a former 4 star running back, is headed to Memphis. The Rebels will likely face him in Oxford in 2016.

Mathers was a part of Freeze's first recruiting class, but he hasn't done quite enough to stand out among the overabundance of running backs on the Ole Miss roster. Kamara was a promising cornerback recruit who came from Grayson High School with Robert Nkemdiche. A talented defensive backfield has kept him in minor roles.

And then there's Linebackers coach Tom Allen, who departed in December to become the defensive coordinator at USF. Freeze filled the open position by reaching into his existing staff. Corey Batoon will now coach the safeties while defensive coordinator Dave Wommack coaches the linebackers. LINK

Allen, one of the Rebels' most animated coaches, could frequently be spotted on the sidelines celebrating with players and motivating his defense. He was hired away for a reason, so Allen likely won't be easy to replace.

Here's the biggest news of 2015: Chad Kelly will be playing in the Grove Bowl come April. There will then be a "competition" crowning Kelly, not Bo Wallace for the first time in the Freeze era, as your starter in Tuscaloosa on September 19th. That's a presumptuous opinion on this writer's part, but Kelly didn't sign with Ole Miss to sit on the bench.

The makeup of this team will continue to evolve rapidly as national signing day approaches and transfers finalize their decisions. That Peach Bowl loss, as bad as it was, is already becoming old news. It's a new year with a new crew.

2015, here we come.