HOOVER, Ala. – The Ole Miss football team gets to start its season where it wants to finish.
The Rebels will take on Boise State on Aug. 28 in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, which is the venue that hosts the Southeastern Conference Championship game. The press selected Ole Miss to finish fourth in the SEC West in 2014, but Rebels’ coach Hugh Freeze said his team is ahead of schedule.
“The journey we’ve been on, I think it’s faster than it thought possible,” Freeze said Thursday at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala. “When I first arrived there, I really thought we would be going to hopefully a bowl game in year three. We were able to do that in years one and two, and win both of them.”

Ole Miss improved in each of Freeze’s first two years, and the Rebels return 16 starters from last year’s team that won eight games. Most notably is senior quarterback Bo Wallace, who could set the standard for SEC signal-callers after the mass exodus of quarterbacks to this year’s NFL Draft.
“[Wallace needs] to continue what he’s done,” Freeze said. “He’s just been overshadowed by some really good players. Also continue to cut down on his turnovers, make sure he’s making smart plays most of the time.”
The senior is already second in Ole Miss history in career total offense and passing yards, and he set single-season school records last season with 3,701 yards of total offense and 283 completions. Wallace said he visited mechanics coach Tom House during the offseason to fix his throwing motion, specifically hip movement and posture.

With the Rebels being out of the SEC running for so long, Wallace said they embrace the idea of being a dark horse candidate in the Western division.
“We don’t feel any pressure at all,” Wallace said. “We are confident that we can get into late games with those teams. That is our goal, to get late into the fourth quarter and see what happens.”
But those close games are where Ole Miss fell short last season. The Rebels finished with a 2-2 record in one-score games, including a 17-10 overtime loss against in-state rival Mississippi State to end the regular season.
“Up until that LSU game, we were really too young to know how to win,” said senior safety Cody Prewitt. “I think that’s going to be the biggest difference this year because now we know how to win those dogfights. We know how to win those games that are coming down to the fourth quarter. That maturity and experience is really going to help us excel this year.”
Prewitt, a consensus First Team All-America selection, anchors a defense that returns nine starters. Junior defensive end C.J. Johnson figures to be a key player after missing the final nine games of 2013 with an ankle injury.
Ole Miss allowed 370.5 yards per game last season and will need to contain the up-tempo offenses that have taken the conference by storm if its hopes to make a run to the SEC title game.

The Rebels look to model themselves after Auburn, which went from worst to first in the SEC in 2013, and Freeze may have spotted what sparked the Tigers’ rapid recovery.
“One common thread you would see in all of those that have had quick turnarounds and successful seasons is accountability to the little things,” Freeze said. “I just don’t believe it’s possible for teams in this league to have any kind of sustained success if you’re not accountable to the little things.”