McCready: 2013's Big Three blazed trail for 2016 class

I’ll always remember January 2013.

In the fall of 2011, we had proven that a “fan site” or “recruiting site” could thrive as an objective news outlet. We had broken stories about the firing of Houston Nutt, the hiring of Hugh Freeze and the hiring of Ross Bjork.

Still, our subscribers wanted recruiting scoop. That was, whether we liked it or not, how we were judged.

So in November 2012, I harassed Beverly Nkemdiche and lined up an interview with her for the Friday morning before Ole Miss played Georgia in Athens. The only problem was, on the day before my interview with Robert Nkemdiche’s mother was to take place, Michael Carville of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an interview with her.

I was crestfallen. I drove to Atlanta a day early anyway and met Ms. Nkemdiche at a coffee shop in a Barnes and Noble in Gwinnett County. By the end of our two-hour visit, I knew her son, the top-ranked player in the Class of 2013, was going to Ole Miss. I returned to my hotel room and wrote. And wrote. And wrote. My colleague, Chase Parham, edited. And edited. And edited.

The reaction was electric, and if we had any doubt before, it was erased: The signing class of 2013 was going to provide beaucoup storylines.

Fast forward to January 2013. Our sources told us Laquon Treadwell, a five-star wide receiver from Crete, Ill., was leaning heavily to Ole Miss. Treadwell had set an announcement date for mid-January, and we made surreptitious plans to cover it.

It’s not that we were concerned our competition might discover our plans and emulate them; it was more a concern that Treadwell might choose Oklahoma State or Michigan while we sat in the audience at Crete-Monee High School.

We were 99 percent confident Treadwell was Ole Miss-bound when I walked into the airport in Jackson, Miss., to board my flight to Chicago. When I got to security, I encountered a problem. My birthday is Jan. 10, and my driver’s license had expired days earlier. I was allowed to board the flight only after I applied for a license online, but the rental car companies were less forgiving. No license = no rental.

Enter the power of the network. A Rivals.com staffer based in Chicago agreed to drive me to Crete but he requested that I be part of his show on a local Chicago television program in advance of the announcement. So much for the plan to stay low-profile just in case Treadwell went elsewhere.

Anyway, I holed up in a Chicago hotel room and for the better part of 24 hours, I talked to everyone I could find who was part of Treadwell’s life. We were the only Mississippi media outlet in attendance that evening when Treadwell committed to Ole Miss, and I remember being struck y by his charisma and his command of the moment. As I left Crete that night to return to Chicago, I had little doubt Treadwell would be a star at Ole Miss.

Our attention then turned to Laremy Tunsil, a five-star offensive tackle from Lake City, Fla. There was a buzz in recruiting circles that Tunsil was Ole Miss-bound, but we couldn’t nail it down. Marshall Henderson and the Rebels were due to play in Gainesville on a Saturday in late January, and we talked about making the trip there and stopping in Lake City along the way.

We ultimately elected not to; it was our worst decision of the recruiting cycle. On that Friday morning that we would have been in Lake City, the rumors began to take on a life of their own: Tunsil was choosing Ole Miss over Georgia and Alabama. Days later, Ole Miss was the story of National Signing Day, and the seeds of a program’s renaissance had been planted.

Three years later, Ole Miss is a top-15 program that just won the Sugar Bowl and is one of five programs to play in consecutive New Year’s Six bowl games. On Monday, both Treadwell and Tunsil announced their intention to forego their senior seasons at Ole Miss and enter the NFL draft. Tunsil could be the top overall pick in the draft, while Treadwell is expected to go no lower than No. 15 overall to St. Louis Rams. Nkemdiche, who was suspended from the Sugar Bowl after being arrested for possession for marijuana last month in Atlanta, is also expected to be among the first 10 selections taken in April.

Three years ago, Ole Miss was a fledgling program searching for an identity. Nkemdiche, Treadwell and Tunsil provided it. Three years later, that trio is off to chase dollars in the NFL and another recruiting class appears headed to Oxford. Two of the nation’s top five prospects, Shea Patterson and Gregory Little, are already committed to Ole Miss. Two other top-five prospects, Mique Juarez and Rashan Gary, have the Rebels in their top two just four weeks away from National Signing Day.

Just know this: The 2016 signing class never comes to fruition unless the 2013 class blazes the trail. Nkemdiche, Treadwell and Tunsil believed in Hugh Freeze’s vision.

Three years later, Ole Miss is on the cusp of becoming a nationally elite program. Over the next four weeks, Patterson and Little _ and maybe Gary and/or Juarez _ will draw the headlines. This time, however, there won’t be shock.

On Friday night, minutes after Ole Miss had finished off a 48-20 win over Oklahoma State in New Orleans, Tunsil referred to the Rebels’ recruiting efforts as the “new normal” as he took off his Ole Miss jersey for the final time. He didn’t give himself credit, but he should’ve.

If Ole Miss continues on its upward trajectory, he _ along with Treadwell, Nkemdiche and a few others in that much-ballyhooed 2013 class _ made it possible.