Ranking the SEC defensive ends | SEC Blog - ESPN
Despite missing most of last season with a torn ACL, Kentrell Lockett was named the third best SEC pass rusher for this upcoming season by ESPN's SEC bloggeurs.
Turnover Margin and Fumble Recovery in the SEC | Team Speed Kills
Kleph's looking at some stats which, although a totally nerdy exercise, is fun and interesting to this particular bloggeur. Regarding Ole Miss, our turnover margin/game was dead last in the conference behind both Kentucky and Vanderbilt, something which can best be explained by our quarterbacks propensity to throw interceptions and our secondary's near inability to catch them. We were though, interestingly enough, the second most capable fumble recovering team in the conference, recovering nearly 70% of the fumbles our opponents coughed up. Maintaining that consistency, we were also the second most capable fumblers, failing to recover nearly 60% of the fumbles we coughed up.
Most interestingly though were the statistics which demonstrated that Alabama was the worst at recovering fumbles nationwide (the Tide recovered less than 20% of their opponents fumbles... baffling, I know), while Mississippi State was the best in the conference at such. As Kleph points out, though, fumble recovery relies much more on luck than skill, and outliers should see a regression towards the mean for 2011.
SEC Offensive Third Down Conversion Percentage | Team Speed Kills
More depressing stats from Kleph! Ole Miss had the second worst 3rd down conversion rate in the SEC last year which, if you're going to use just one statistic to tell the story of a football team, that'd be it.
Rebels, Bulldogs see boom in budget | The Clarion-Ledger | clarionledger.com
Check these numbers out.
The 2011-12 athletic budgets for Ole Miss and Mississippi State saw substantial increases from last year, according to figures released Thursday. Ole Miss' budget climbed to $47.58 million, an 8.9 percent increase. Mississippi State's budget increased by 7.2 percent to $40.06 million, nearly twice the state's next largest budget, Southern Miss.
And while that's nice and all, one can't help but remember that Ole Miss' football budget + Mississippi State's football budget < Alabama's football budget. So while the increases might be significant, we're still a ways off from being truly competitive.
Moving Forward with Pete Boone | OMSpirit.com
Look, Pete, we get that you've done a lot for Ole Miss. We get that you've hired folks, fired folks, raised some money here and there. We get that, and we thank you for it. We just wish you could at least show us that you really care about what we fans are saying. True, most of us are idiots, but we're the ones spending upwards of a few thousand bucks a year to watch Rebel football.