Rebel Roundup - 8/24/10

Reviewing Ole Miss' scrimmage | SEC Blog - ESPN
High praise from ESPN's Chris Low is extended to Nathan Stanley, Melvin Harris, DT Shackleford, and our crop of active, NCAA-ready freshmen in this review of Saturday's scrimmage. If Melvin Harris can do what he has done in practice in actual football games, then our offense suddenly and very unexpectedly got a whole new dynamic.

Masoli awaiting NCAA clearance | The Clarion-Ledger
And then there's this. Jeremiah Masoli is still awaiting the NCAA's go-ahead on his transfer out of Oregon and to Ole Miss. Per NCAA regulations, Masoli is allowed to practice for a fortnight (I think that means he is allowed fourteen separate practices) as a sort of grace period while awaiting the NCAA's clearance. If the clearinghouse doesn't respond timely enough (by, what is it, Thursday?), Masoli will have to sit out of practice. If the clearinghouse doesn't respond at all or, egads, responds negatively, then he'll not be allowed a spot on the roster.

Ole Miss, a place for second chances  | ajc.com
Ray Glier of the Atlanta Journal Constitution does a fair job dispelling the trite, knee-jerk criticisms Ole Miss and Houston Nutt have taken on by bringing Jeremiah Masoli into the team by comparing the coaches Masoli "gamble" with the risks and difficulties surrounding Jerrell Powe's qualification to play Rebel football. What's most interesting or, moreso, most unfortunate about most of our critics is that, despite the logic or sanity one attempts to pump into them, they endure so well. Take Powe, for example. Over the past few seasons, the guy has shown nothing but dedication to his team. He has, literally, worked his ass off to get in shape and has not had one academic issue during his student tenure. Yet, people are still calling him fat and illiterate. The same goes for Jeremiah Masoli who, despite having paid his legally mandated debts to society (people talk about the guy as if he broke out of Parchman two weeks ago with chains still shackled to his feet) and despite being convicted of crimes which, even within the scope of college football, are relatively quite harmless, is grilled by critics as a "thug."

These guys are obviously aware of this, but do not at all put on airs of such. They know, perhaps better than anyone on our Rebel roster, that

Diamond Rebels Report, Begin Work Toward 2011 Season | OleMissSports.com

It's always exciting this time of year when you get everyone back on the field for the first time, especially this year with one of the most talented recruiting classes we've had here...We had eight players in this recruiting class drafted and six of them chose to come be Rebels and that's very exciting for us. It's also exciting when you realize we had some of our returning players drafted and they elected to come back for another season as well.

I dunno, Mike, isn't that the same stuff we wear every season? Regardless, welcome to campus, Diamond Rebels.

Hey, Look! It's The Preseason BlogPoll!
And, look! Our Rebels got a vote (from the Boise State blog which, interestingly enough, simply submitted last year's final poll results as a sort of symbolic anti-preseason poll protest).