It's time for The Mailbag, presented by Whitney McNutt of Tommy Morgan Inc. Realtors, Edition 165.

I asked for your questions. You delivered. So here we go...

Fandom -- real fandom, like your Ole Miss fandom or my Cubs fandom -- is a lot like life. You endure the bad, drill through the mundane and try to savor the good. Fandom requires hope, and hope is risky. Hope brings heartache sometimes. Hope can be depressing, agonizing, but hope is also addictive. It's like Andy wrote to Red, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

In some ways, I'm being silly. In others, I'm being really serious. For the longest time, I hoped the Cubs would win, and the close calls -- 1984, 1989, 2003, 2008 -- were brutal. But my God, the good seasons, where hope really caught momentum, were invigorating. In 2015, a summer where my depression was really trying to catch hold and do damage, it was the Cubs that pulled me out of a months-long funk. There were these young players -- Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber -- that were so exciting. And then they got hot and they just started winning. And they kept winning. They won the wildcard game and then beat the Cardinals. Yes, they were swept by the Mets, but by then, I had my energy back.

A year later, they won the World Series and I was reminded what fandom is about. You already know this, but fandom isn't about the team you're cheering for. It's about the people you cheer with. Players come and go. Bryant is a free agent now. So is Schwarber. Russell is out of baseball. Javy Baez is a Detroit Tiger. Jon Lester has retired. Hell, Anthony Rizzo is gone.

But what I remember about that magical season are a few things -- telling Carson we were going to Game 3 of the World Series and the night they won the whole thing. Caroline and Campbell, who care nothing about sports, wore their Cubs gear and stayed up. When Rajai Davis hit that godforsaken home run in the eighth inning of Game 7, Carson was crushed. I was, too, but I had to comfort him. Everyone endured a rain delay and then screamed so loudly on Ben Zobrist's double and Miguel Montero's single in the top of the 10th that the dogs basically hid from all of us. Then, after the final out, we sprayed champagne in the driveway. Laura kept telling me I was missing the celebration. I wasn't.

The next morning, the girls wore Cubs stuff to school and arrived late, citing "Cubs" as the reason for their tardiness. I don't know that I've ever been that touched by something so completely trivial.

There's a video that a Cubs fan posted in the days after that World Series. It keeps getting removed for copyright violations, I suppose, but someone else inevitably re-posts it. Some five-plus years later, I can still find it. I linked it below.

It's funny; I can watch Game 7 again and again and I'm fine. I feel nothing, except for that bottom of the eighth, when I get really uncomfortable still, even knowing the ending is going to be a good one. However, that video gets me damn near every time. It's not the highlights or the announcers or any of that. It's the shots of the fans -- the people in the bars, the scene outside Wrigley Field, the old man presumably with his sons, the reactions in living rooms -- that always make things kind of dusty.

So, to answer your question, fandom is brutal because it's supposed to be. It makes the winning, when it happens, exquisite. It makes the hope the thing that holds you, which at the end of the day is a great thing. And it makes you appreciate the people who share the journey with you all the more.

I'd be in. However, I think while he could tweet a Ric Flair intro, I don't think he could put on that show.

Rivals insists that he is.

I spoke to someone claiming to be him.

I have to believe he's real.

Is there a reason to think something nefarious is afoot?

I think they'll try, yes. My guess is the institution of transfer windows at a couple of spots in the calendar. Most everyone would be in favor. However, if you're talking about ways to curtail the number of transfers, no, I think the toothpaste is out of that tube.

I have no idea. That said, he let Bianco go down that road because he thought Bianco was going to get the job and it would create a path to hire who he wanted to hire, at least in my opinion.

As for Kiffin, he did all he could to retain him, which was the smart thing to do in this climate.

I don't know Carter well enough to know how he would grade himself. You'd have to ask him that.

I'm honestly not sure. However, the days of fifth-year senior SEC quarterbacks are likely mostly past us. If he's not good enough to head to the NFL after four years, he's likely entering the portal and/or being replaced before his fifth season.

It damn sure wouldn't be California. No thank you.

So either Chicago or New York. Chicago would be a little cheaper, so I guess I'd go that route. All of those places sound horrific right now.

I think it would be better for everyone. As it is today, it's kind of non-stop.

I still think his best moment was his game at Tennessee. He single-handedly carried a team to a win. It was an incredible night.

Of those four, I'd want Eli Manning. I'm not sure I'd even have to think about it.

I think it's just going to make those types of players even more rare. As you noted, I think you'll see a lot of guys make a name for themselves for a couple of years and then transfer to a new place to chase a title or something. The rich are going to get richer. That's fast becoming obvious.

I'll go with Jaron Willis and Quinshon Judkins. However, honestly, it's impossible to know until you see them in person.

I think we all knew that day in early January 2010 a steep decline was imminent. We just didn't know how to write it. Nutt wasn't recruiting the way a sustaining power would recruit. The roster had gaping holes. There was a flatness one could feel but that was difficult to describe.

There are some similarities to today. The program simply should be recruiting better than it is. I'm not sure that's debatable. The roster has some gaping holes. There are depth issues.

However, Kiffin has the transfer portal at his disposal. Nutt didn't. Kiffin can at least put a band-aid on some spots. Nutt, with the notable exception of Jeremiah Masoli in 2010, couldn't.

Bottom line: No one questions Kiffin's team-building or coaching skills. Plenty question whether he can sustain a winner and build a program that consistently wins. We'll see.

Oh, and Freeze was a really good coach who worked hard at recruiting. Freeze's problem, at the end of the day, was he fell in love with his celebrity, he heard everything anyone said about him and I believe he easily felt threatened by others and therefore didn't ever hire anyone he viewed as smarter than he. Let no one tell you Freeze wasn't a good coach, though. He was and is. He just made a ton of rookie mistakes.

There's a lot here. Chase addressed a lot of it in his column, especially if one can read between the lines a bit.

I don't know if the Saturday photo stuff bothered Plumlee, but I can tell you, as the father of a teenage son, it would've royally pissed me off. It was patronizing. At some point, I began to feel sorry for Plumlee. I remember telling Chase one Saturday, "There's no way he really wants to pose for those photos." Turns out I was right.

It was kind of like he had become the butt of the joke at worst, the program puppy at best. I don't think he's an SEC quarterback. I never did. I don't think he's an NFL receiver, either. However, from all counts, he's a nice kid from a good family. I wish him well and will be cheering for him to have success at his next stop.

That's more than fair. Like I said above, recruiting should simply be going better than it is right now. I reach that conclusion every time I contemplate the topic. They should have more '23 momentum than they do. But again, that's a fair point you bring up.

Well, we were in Atlanta that week and knew stories even before the game started. We weren't in New Orleans, and with everything on Zoom and closed off, it's probably going to take a minute.

I have no idea. I have a difficult time believing UCLA is chomping at the bit to spend the money it would have to spend to hire Lane Kiffin. USC is about to be a freaking power. The Trojans are about to take the NIL world by storm. You're apparently willing to let Chip Kelly go because you can't make the financial commitment he's looking for. Where does Kiffin make sense in that scenario?

Would he want the job? I have no idea. Would he want his name floated? History says yes. But would he make sense for UCLA? It's hard for me to get a read on that. If it comes to that, we'll do the necessary work on the story, but that just feels off.

Can Ole Miss ever be Alabama or Georgia? No, I don't think so. Auburn has more resources than Ole Miss has.

I've said this for years: Ole Miss can win big, but Ole Miss must be remarkably efficient. It has far less margin for error than the programs you mentioned. But in the 14 years I've been here, I've now seen Nutt, Freeze and Kiffin win pretty big, so it can absolutely be done. Sustaining that success, however, has proved difficult.

I guess we met on the beat. When I first got here, in March 2008, I covered everything by myself -- football, basketball, baseball, recruiting, every damn thing. I'd have days that spring where I covered a spring football practice, a junior day, basketball recruiting and a baseball game. I'd be at Swayze, loading photo galleries, calling football prospects, writing stories, etc., and all of that before having to write baseball. It was too much. It was insanity. I was convinced I'd made a horrific mistake. I came very, very close to taking another job, but I just couldn't do that to my wife, who was at home in Spanish Fort, raising three kids by herself while we prayed the house would sell.

By May 2009, I knew the workload wasn't sustainable. Laura's mother had died unexpectedly in July 2008 and she was depressed. I was overworked and miserable. Chase had had a failed business venture starting a new site and was desperate. So when he hit me up and basically begged to work for peanuts, I took him up on the offer and let him cover baseball. Rivals saw the difference and reorganized the site's contract.

As for the podcast, I missed talk radio. We talked each morning and one day just decided to sort of record it. Some 13 years later, I suppose, here we are. I think both of us would be lying if we said we forecasted the podcast becoming what it's become. I know I damn sure didn't. I don't think he did either.

Yes. I just think there are some growing pains. He's not a finished product as a program builder, and I think he's got to embrace that part of his job. He also is going to have to surround himself with people he trusts and let them do their jobs.

He's 15-8 in two seasons, including a 10-7 SEC mark. That's pretty solid. Now he has to build on it. This is a critical crossroads.

I don't think it's about money. If it were just about money, I suspect, Ole Miss would keep him.

1. LSU 2019

2. Clemson 2018

3. Florida State 2013

4. Alabama 2011

5. Alabama 2020

1. Sure. Why not?

2. At some point, he has to recruit elite talent to win at the elite level.

3. Yes. There are really smart people trying to launch NIL the right way, the intelligent way. Can you be top five in NIL? No. But you can be competitive. Ole Miss has a great brand.

As of this moment, there's no way anyone could really answer that. I mean, it's damn near impossible. Who's the quarterback? Who are the receivers? Does Snoop Conner stay? Nick Broeker? Chance Campbell? Who signs out of the portal? Is Costa eligible? There are so many questions. I just don't know how one could properly predict what's going to -- or not going to -- happen.

I kind of go both ways on this. On one hand, I agree with your premise. On the other, I've watched CNN and the New York Times pivot pretty hard lately. I think, rationally, the Democrats know they must pivot away from COViD to avoid disaster at the polls in November.

As for Kiffin, I just don't know. I'd need to ask prospects who passed on Ole Miss. It's hard to get them on the phone.

Recruiting coverage is part of the job. I'm diving back into it this week. Managing the message board isn't bad. I actually think it's kind of fun sometimes. I pray I never bathe in mayonnaise.

Yes, and here's why: It announced to the college football world Ole Miss was serious -- very serious -- about winning. That's important.

On one hand, no. Something feels funny, and I can't quite put my finger on it. On the other hand, where's he going? Ole Miss pays $7.5 a year. There aren't that many jobs going above that, and of those, which ones would hire Kiffin before he proves he can build a consistent contender?