Beard bullish on Ole Miss’ contender bonafides with ’18-round’ SEC fight fast-approaching
Ole Miss on Monday tied its highest Associated Press Top 25 ranking (No. 16) in 11 years.
However, the Rebels had eight SEC teams in front of them, including the nation’s Top 2 teams in Tennessee and Alabama, as well as No. 5 Alabama and No. 6 Florida.
Ole Miss (11-1) has one final non-conference tune-up (at Memphis on December 28) before tipping off arguably the most competitive SEC season in modern times.
Ole Miss hosts Georgia on January 4.
“I absolutely feel we could be (a contender),” second-year Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard said. He was joining the ‘Field of 68’ podcast. “I’m biased. I’ve never coached a team where I couldn’t tell you, ‘Hey, we’re going to be a part of the fight.’ Now, some years your margin for error is much smaller than other years.
“The SEC doesn’t come down to talent. It comes down to discipline, chemistry and winning close games. Our team this year is similar. I don’t believe there will be a game this year where we walk off the court saying we just didn’t have enough talent to beat those guys.”
LOOK: Ole Miss has won 10 of 11. Good thing. The SEC’s never been stronger.
The SEC is dominating ESPN’s bracketology projections, too.
Tennessee and Auburn are No. 1 seeds. Florida, Alabama and Kentucky are 2s. Mississippi State and Texas A&M are 4s, while Oklahoma is a 5, Ole Miss a 6 and Georgia an 8.
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Arkansas (9-seed), Texas (10) and Missouri (11) round out the field for the conference. Vanderbilt is the second team out. LSU is the sixth.
“We’re off to a good start,” Beard said. “It’s early. Really for us it started with our preseason games (and) closed-door scrimmage against Houston. Exhibition game against Illinois showed some things we can do well. We’ve had some real opportunity games in our schedule — BYU, Purdue, Louisville. We’re definitely a work in progress, but I feel like we have a chance to be part of the fight this year.”
The SEC went into last weekend’s slate of games with a collective record of 157-20 in non-conference opportunities this season. The league was a ridiculous 42-2 over the previous 13 days. Every other conference had twice as many losses.
“Everybody’s got talent. Everybody’s got coaching,” Beard said. “The league is obviously off to a great start in terms of wins and losses. This is going to be a lot of fun to go through this 18-round fight. I’m looking forward to it.”
