Survey: Ole Miss fans think Ole Miss will win at least 9 games (but are indecisive about lunch)

At the conclusion of every Southeastern Conference Media Days, the conference announces its media picks for a trio of All-SEC teams and predicted finishes for each of the 14 member football programs for the upcoming football season. While this is a valuable exercise in understanding  the expectations of the media that cover the Southeastern Conference, we at Red Cup Rebellion feel that this annual tradition overlooks another important set of expectations: those of SEC football fans themselves.

Don't get us wrong; the traditional sports media has valuable perspective to offer! They watch football too, and they speak to coaches and players to get a deeper insight into what might play out on the gridiron this fall, but we want ideas and opinions informed by a view from the stands, not from the pressbox.

In other words, we wanted to know what your thoughts about the Ole Miss Rebels football team are. So we took to social media to ask!

Hi. Please take this short poll. Thank you. https://t.co/DQyLsw6PWv

— Red Cup Rebellion (@RedCupRebellion) July 15, 2016

The poll, which is now closed, contained three questions.

1. Select, from 0-12, the number of regular season football games you feel Ole Miss Rebels will win in 2016.
2. (Optional) What are you eating for lunch? (the survey was tweeted just before many of you were likely to partake.)
3. (Also optional) If there was any other information we at Red Cup Rebellion should be aware of?

In just a short 90 minutes, 214 of you elected to respond. This gave us a robust set of data, that allowed us to really dig into the mind of the everyday Rebel fan.

So how many games is Ole Miss gonna win?

Well if y'all have anything to say about it, the answer is "a lot"!

The most common response from 0-12 was that Ole Miss would win ten regular season games in 2016, with 70 votes. In close second was nine wins, which earned 64 votes and would match the win total of the 2015 regular season. Interestingly, 27 and 23 of you, respectively, felt Ole Miss would finish with 11 or 12 wins, with a mere 18 of you picking Ole Miss regress in 2016.

If you've done the math, that means that there are only a dozen responses left to distribute across answers 0-7. Those of you who voted that the Rebels would win seven or fewer games could only count one one hand the number of folks who agreed with you.

# of Ole Miss Wins	Votes
0	2
1	2
2	0
3	1
4	1
5	3
6	2
7	1
8	18
9	64
10	70
11	27
12	23

Graphically, that looks something like this:

Look at that! All of the votes are all smashed to the right, giving an image similar to some sort of horrifying breaker in a terribly unsafe wave pool. As you can see, a vast, vast majority of you feel that Ole Miss can perform similarly to its 2014 and 2015 seasons, with a few predicting the Rebels to be even better in 2016 (and much, much fewer picking them to be worse).

Here's the same information, but in a pie chart for easy digestion.*

I think it's safe to say that Ole Miss fans are pretty optimistic about their Rebels!

What about lunch?

The second question of the poll asked the survey takers what they were eating for lunch on July 15, 2016. Unfortunately, no correlation could be drawn between the responses to Question 1 and those to Question 2—that is to say, there was no real way to conclude that folks who said something like, say, "turkey-pesto sammy" weren't more likely to vote for a 10 win season than someone who said, say, "sushi & soup."

I did, however, gather a great deal of insight into your eating habits, and I am delighted to say that the lot of you enjoy similar foods to those of us here who purvey content on Ole Miss' hottest food blog. The most popular answer given was some variation of "I am undecided." In fact, 18 of the 174 (just over 10 percent) of y'all offered up an answer that conveyed an intention to eat lunch, but a lack of conviction over what that lunch may be. Answers ranged from "I don't know yet" to "I don't know, probably beef jerkey" to "Probably some tacos. But maybe not. Who knows."

The most popular answer of any real food item was a variation of chicken, such as "chicken," "chicken tenders and fries," or "chicken sandwich ya bish." Chicken, as we all know, is a very popular dish in Mississippi, as the Magnolia State is one of the nation's largest chicken producers. Heck, our state's biggest football game is even named after a dang egg! (None of y'all said "eggs," which is fine. Eggs aren't a lunch food.)

Other popular choices were pizza, tacos, sushi, and the ever vague "food."

Of course, this being the internet, the debate to be eternally contested across the World Wide Web was also present in this survey. As it is a delicious, yet quick and inexpensive meal, a whole mess of y'all decided to eat a hot dog for lunch. Of that cabal, a sizable subset couldn't very well do so without offering their takes as to whether or not a hot dog can be correctly classified as a sandwich.

Some unique answers included in this survey's results were "a vegan feast," "salmon patty," "smoothie?," and "tomato," which are all fine lunches. I think it is great that you are all trying new and different things. I enjoyed these types of responses.

There were some responses, however, that I did not enjoy. A few rogue survey takers, who I can only presume were making crude attempts at humor, wrote that they were eating "dookie," "poop," or "ur mom lol" for lunch. To those of you crass enough to hijack this exercise for the sake of your gross, mean jokes, I think such vulgarities are terribly inappropriate and offensive, and I would ask that you please refrain from responding to future surveys we may host here on Red Cup Rebellion dot com.

Anything else?

The final question of our survey asked those who took it if there is any other pertinent information that we, the survey administrators, should be made aware of. This was open ended as to allow survey takers to be frank and honest in a way that allows us to truly understand the needs and wants of you, the reader.

The most sizable contingent of the respondents simply wanted to answer the question in the negative, and inform us that they did not have anything else to add.

• Nah
• Nah
• Nah
• Nah fam
• No
• No
• No
• No
• No
• No
• No
• no
• No, HottyToddy!
• No?
• Nope
• Nope
• Nope. That covers it.

Even though the question was completely optional, and a blank response was an assumed "no," I can only commend these respondents for going the extra mile to ensure that your voice was not only heard, but that it was understood.

As with the prior question's responses, the debate which, like an unchecked conflagration, has consumed every nook and cranny of the internet also found its way into the answers to survey question number three.

Just as one respondent argued that "Hotdogs are not sandwiches," another responded, as if in a proper debate, "Hotdogs are sandwiches." Another offered a more nuanced take, that "a hotdog has some of the same characteristics as a sandwich, but should be considered in its own category," while someone else, who is completely bonkers, said "Hot dogs are not sandwiches but can be eaten with ketchup."

It seems this issue will never be resolved.

Other opinions offered were that those who don't grow their own herbs "don't deserve to drink good cocktails," that "Jurgen Klinsmann should be fired in favor of Mark Wilmots," and that one survey taker's dog is "pretty great." I bet he/she is! Dogs are all pretty great.

But it wasn't all opinions and takes in our responses. Many of you offered up a stone cold fact, all of which are important and interesting. Some examples include:

• Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both participants are registered blood donors
• There's a new Katy Perry single out today (ED: July 15, 2016, not the date of this publication)
• Girls have more tastebuds then boys.
• My 8yo son is in first place in his weekly Fitbit challenge with a bunch of 30-60 year old folks.
• I have a mole in my belly button.

Of course, the unassailable and very important fact that was on the minds of much of our respondents was that Ole Miss is currently under an NCAA investigation for, among other things, letting someone sleep on a couch and giving someone else a ride to Memphis.

Related to this was the response that "[t]he NCAA is a corrupt organization that levels punishments in a capricious manner according to what they think they can get away with without being sued." Interesting!

Unexpectedly, some of you took the opportunity to provide us with positive feedback, and let us know that it's our website you turn to for Ole Miss news, rumors, discussion, and more.

Folks, we're flattered. We didn't solicit your compliments nor did we expect them, so it is truly exciting and uplifting to see such positive feedback from those of you who felt compelled to give it. We promise we will continue to work, day-in and day-out, to give you the content you want and deserve.

Among the hodgepodge of the remainder of the 147 responses that you volunteered to offer, there were a few that mentioned PokemonGo, with some informing us that there's a Pikachu their house or that they caught a Squirtle in their office, a group of you who had a giggle or two at the expense of Ole Miss' primary sports rivals, and a trio of you who took the opportunity to inform us that you were using the restroom (i.e., making pee or poo) while completing the survey. This is the kind of modern convenience that we are pleased to learn is fully compatible with the media platforms we use to deliver our content.

Sincerely, we thank you for participating in this very important exercise. We hope that you all have the opportunity to take future surveys at Red Cup Rebellion while using the restroom.

*Ha! Just a little food humor for ya.