In 2011, Ole Miss didn’t win a Southeastern Conference game. 
The Rebels were slaughtered that year by eventual SEC champion LSU, 52-3, in Oxford. In the two games before, Ole Miss lost to Louisiana Tech and Kentucky by a combined 37 points. The season ended with two wins, a team without a coaching staff and a fan base wondering what could go wrong next.    
It took three years, but that team and its haunting memories have disappeared. Rebels coach Hugh Freeze has removed them, using a miraculous plan to bring the Rebels back to glory.  
Freeze, who took over for Houston Nutt in 2012, has transformed a team once known as an SEC punching bag and made them elite. The Rebels are no longer the automatic win Alabama and LSU looked forward to — they’ve added strength to an already nationally praised conference. 
Freeze’s first task in the process was recruiting. He turned in the 40th-best class according to recruiting service Rivals.com in his first season, despite having only a few months to recruit and having little to sell about the team. He’s turned in two top-20 classes since, including a No. 7 ranking in 2013 featuring top recruit and current sophomore defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche. 
One of the players from the first class was a transfer Freeze knew while coaching at Arkansas State. Senior quarterback Bo Wallace has been the starter since he arrived to The Grove, and his progression is a testament of Freeze’s coaching.
Wallace was wild in 2012, constantly shifting between big plays and costly turnovers. Freeze waited and instilled discipline in his quarterback, and Wallace’s touchdown/interception ratio sharpened enough to make him a surgeon in big moments. 
Ole Miss also ranks first in scoring defense, and it’s the by-product of a cohesion of new and old. Freeze and defensive coaches developed recruits like Nkemdiche, but they also welcomed and trained recruits from Nutt’s final class like senior safety Cody Prewitt and senior cornerback Senquez Golson. 
Statistics can showcase a great deal of what Freeze has done, but the best place to see Ole Miss’s progression is in the results against LSU. 
In 2012, LSU survived a scare from Ole Miss and won a memorable 41-35 game. Ole Miss showed sparks of a great team with big pass plays and interceptions, but the mistakes outweighed them. Wallace’s three interceptions and Odell Beckham’s famous punt return for a touchdown ended up being the difference. 
Ole Miss had a few other close losses in 2012, but its talent was good enough to finish the regular season 6-6 and win a bowl game to end the year — just what Freeze needed for next year.
The next step came against LSU in 2013, when the Rebels made a late field goal to pull a 27-24 upset. Ole Miss forced three Zach Mettenberger interceptions and outgained the Tigers by 137 yards. Freeze and his team had proof they could beat an SEC giant, giving them confidence for the season ahead. 
This season, Ole Miss sits 7-0 and is ranked third in the nation. It’s the school’s best start since 1962, and victories against Alabama and Texas A&M prove it’s at or above any team’s level. 
Meanwhile, LSU stands in a rebuilding season, hampered by players who left and waiting, like Freeze did, for the young players to prosper. Waiting means growing pains, and it’s possible the Rebels will bring it to the Tigers this
week. 
Les Miles needs to stick to the process Freeze has done and see what his players tell him with their play. Saturday could be another lesson for a young team to absorb, or it could be proof these Tigers are ready to compete. 
Tommy Romanach is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from Dallas, Texas. You can reach him on Twitter @troman_92.