COME ONE, COME ALL: Ben’s All-Day Ole Miss AMA (Ask Me Anything) is off and running
There’s never been a better time for you, the Ole Miss athletics fan, to have all of your Rebel questions answered.
And, yes, I mean ALL OF THEM.
Sure, the Rebels, in recent days, have racked up in football recruiting and gone bitingly cold in baseball, but no topics in today’s All-Day Ole Miss AMA (Ask Me Anything) are off-limits.
Don’t just take my word for it, either. Here’s but a taste of the delectable takes we here at the Ole Miss Spirit are serving up on this newest of new Ole Miss Mondays.
@wzimmer25 SAID:
Ben, (he didn’t say Ben), “Were you covering recruiting during the Tunsil/Treadwell/Nkemdiche class? That was the year before I started at Ole Miss and I’m curious what it was like from your perspective.”
BEN, OF HOUSE GARRETT
I was. Actually, that recruiting cycle was far and away the most fun I have or will ever have covering Ole Miss football recruiting. Probably recruiting in general.
In the old days, when paying players to be good at football and win games for our teams was bad, there was a three-day (M-T-W), circus-like-and-all-day-every-day sprint to the finish line of the one, AND ONLY, National Signing Day in February.
I cannot adequately describe how equal parts thrilling and insane and terrible and hilarious the whole winter build-up was. Neal McCready — who, as most of you know, covers Ole Miss for Rivals — flew to Chicago for Treadwell’s announcement. Think about that.
That used to be the normal. Of course he was there. I should haven been there. That’s a failure on my part. Back then, y’all would have expected me to be there. It was, and should have been, a foregone conclusion one of us Spirit staffers was going to be in attendance for a four-star-or-better prospect’s announcement ceremony.
National reporters showed up for Tunsil, the single greatest football recruit I have ever laid eyes on. Even the simplest (like me!) of recruiting nerds knew he was going to be the best NFL left tackle at some point.
And that is what Tunsil is.
He recently negotiated (for himself!) the most lucrative tackle contract in NFL history.
GOAT stuff. And yeah, I was there for all the bad stuff. I blame him for little or none of it. He’s the greatest Ole Miss Rebel ever if we’re talking pure talent. He’s the kind of player that makes us love sports because physically they don’t make sense to us. Like human beings aren’t supposed to work like Larmey Tunsil. If I saw the Incredible Hulk do the Hulk Smash in person (think Thor: Ragnarok), I would absolutely flip my (lid).
Same deal.
I absolutely flipped my (lid) the first time I saw Laremy Tunsil perform in practice an Inside Strike on an island. As his quarterback’s blind-side blocker. On a capable Ole Miss defensive end who will remain nameless because he is still in the NFL and balled out at Ole Miss, however, on this day, Tunsil took him to the cleaners.
I digress.
Nkemdiche announced before the crack of dawn on his blessed Name Day (read: commitment day).
He went through the whole show while each and every one of us was groggy and miserable. But we (as in, the entire Ole Miss online community) grabbed some extra coffee and got up with him. He was the No. 1 ranked player in the country. Of course we rose and shown.
All that stuff is almost unheard of now. Ole Miss committed a four-star EDGE over the weekend. A few on the beat had a good idea it was coming “pretty soon,” which, in source-speak, usually means a couple of days from the time he/she finally responded to your text.
Jeffery Rush ultimately (on Saturday) released the news on his Twitter feed. And, in turn, everyone released their stories.
It’s not a stretch or even a hot take to say it’s a bummer how the spectacle has been lost.
Covering recruiting can be laborious at times.
However, I do admit I miss the now-gone spectacle of it all. I mean, Cam Akers’ announcement was a watershed moment in my life. Not my sports life. My actual, how-people-will-remember-me, filled-with-existential-dread life.
And we haven’t even started on Chris Jones, which got this whole rambling response started. The 2013 class was the greatest of an era of college football that is, sadly, gone and never coming back. Good thing because the players are finally being given what they deserve. Bad thing because spectacle, frankly, can just be fun. And it’s ok for things to be fun.
Especially when they’re wholly unique. I was in the front row — camera in-hand, a smile on my face — as Tony Conner threw up a Landshark fin to a nationally-televised ESPN audience on National Signing Day.
Collectively, the Ole Miss Community won that day.
I wish it was still around. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.
