Three & Out: What's a buy and what's a sell for the Rebs this season?

MORE: The Mailbag, Edition 1 | Running back Swinney out three weeks

The Ole Miss season opener is two days away, and we lead off this edition of Three & Out with some buy or sells for the 2018 season, as well as a few topics. All of the following questions come from the RebelGrove.com message board. The content item continues with a ranking of the past 10 Ole Miss season openers, and it concludes with a look at Chad Kelly, who will start the final preseason game for Denver on Thursday night.

BUY or SELL: It will take a top-15 recruiting class this season for Matt Luke to create enough momentum to stay in Oxford longterm.

(Sell) I don’t have your definition of longterm, but I received another question about whether he is the coach in 2020. He is or he never had a chance to begin with because anything less than three years either means something crazy happened off the field or there was never true security in the position. Luke was left with a poor roster in several areas, and that’s going to take time to repair, especially since — on paper — the 2019 team is the one most harmed by the NCAA colonoscopy.

Luke’s staff needs to close on some recruiting targets, and he needs to steady things while winning some games the next two seasons. However, I don’t see the top-15 recruiting designation as an important number in that process. Last cycle the No. 15 class had 2,139 points and an average star rating of 3.5. Ole Miss is at 1,877 points with 27 commits, so that 250 or so points would have to be made up in swapping out point totals instead of adding gross points to the team total. That’s a tall task.

BUY or SELL: Kevontae Ruggs has 50 or more tackles.

(Buy) That’s a great over/under because my first thought was to go under for a true freshman, but he’s already a starter, and someone has to replace the 114 tackles from DeMarquis Gates last season. Ole Miss had five players with 50 or more in 2017, and three others were in the 40s. Tayler Polk was the second leading tackler at linebacker with 39 tackles. Also, Ruggs will blow by 50 in his other years on campus.

BUY or SELL: Tylan Knight averages more than five touches per game.

(Sell) He’s been relatively impressive during camp, and I do see a niche for him on this roster, but I’m not ready to say he’s going to have more than 60 touches this season. A.J. Brown, Jordan Wilkins and D’Vaughn Pennamon were the only players with more than that many last year.

BUY OR SELL: Matt Corral plays in more than four games.

(Sell) Luke said on Monday that the current plan is for Jordan Ta’amu to play the entire game on Saturday. I’ll take him at his word and say, barring injury, Corral plays in exactly four games in 2018.

BUY or SELL: Ole Miss has a 1,000-yard rusher this season.

(Sell) Only five players have done that in school history, though Wilkins added his name to that list last season. Greg Little predicted Scottie Phillips to finish with 800 yards rushing this season. I’ll say it’s closer to that number — especially with the major bulk of the early carries going his way. There’s a chance he averages around 20 touches a game.

BUY or SELL: DK Metcalf eclipses the 800-yard receiving mark.

(Buy) Brown led the way with 1,252 receiving yards in 2017, and I think the gap between him and the other receivers will be a little tighter this season. DaMarkus Lodge and Metcalf have a chance at breaking the 800-yard barrier. For Metcalf that means averaging the same as last year per catch and adding 10 more receptions. That’s doable.

BUY or SELL: The defense finishes the season with a top-eight rushing defense in the SEC.

(Sell) The Rebels were No. 123 last season, and while I expect some improvement, the team lost its best linebacker and arguably two best defensive linemen. I think top eight in the SEC would mean top 55 or so nationally and probably around 160 yards per game allowed. The Rebels allowed 245 per game in 2017.

BUY or SELL: Ole Miss baseball goes to Omaha in 2019.

(Buy) Some predictions are for your own mental health and workload. This is one of them. Ole Miss returns a very talented team and got fortunate in the MLB Draft. It’s time to make a legitimate postseason run again.

BUY or SELL: Hugh Freeze is on a Power Five staff in 2019

(Buy) The world has a short attention span, and he’s a talented football coach. There will be an opportunity to be on a staff somewhere, and I don’t think the college football community will blacklist him for a second offseason.

BUY or SELL: Three of the following return for their senior seasons: Greg Little, AJ Brown, DK Metcalf, Benito Jones and Josiah Coatney.

(Sell) Little and Brown are locks if injuries are avoided, and I think Metcalf could very well be in a good draft position, also. I think something will have to go unexpectedly for this to be a buy.

Ole Miss is 7-3 in its last 10 season openers and the majority of the decade of games told an early story that was accurate with the how the season played out. Below is my ranking of them in level of importance at the time, given the state of the season or the program.

No. 10. 2009: Ole Miss 45, Memphis 14

This is easily the last place finisher. Ole Miss, coming off the Cotton Bowl, was a top-five team nationally and easily handled the Tigers in Memphis. It wasn’t a test to prove anything, and it didn’t give a sign to the issues that would hit later on, dropping Ole Miss from national title consideration.

No. 9 2011: BYU 14, Ole Miss 13

Most people remember Nick Brassell dropping a touchdown, but the only touchdown was on defense with Charles Sawyer scoring on an interception. A bad team played a bad game, and Jeremiah Masoli wasn’t around for another season. Week two brought some misguided hope as Ole Miss beat an FCS opponent and BYU lost a nail-biter at ranked Texas, but week three brought reality as Vanderbilt was ahead of Ole Miss by 30 points in the fourth quarter and Utah beat the Cougars, 54-10. Somehow BYU finished 9-3.

No. 8 2017: Ole Miss 47, South Alabama 27

The game itself wasn’t noteworthy other than AJ Brown setting the school record with 233 receiving yards, but for the first time in a long time Ole Miss played a game without an ongoing NCAA investigation. It was the beginning of a return to normalcy.

No. 7 2012: Ole Miss 49, Central Arkansas 27

Central Arkansas was ahead 20-14 at the half, and it was obvious how much work needed to be done. However, Ole Miss found itself a little bit and got the first of six regular season wins to set in motion a gradual rise to national prominence. Hugh Freeze and Bo Wallace won 24 games during their three seasons together.

No. 6 2013: Ole Miss 39, Vanderbilt 35

The Thursday night season opener was critical one in the debut of the heralded 2013 signing class. That Vanderbilt team finished with nine wins, and Ole Miss used a late Jeff Scott scamper to escape Nashville with a win. It was a gutsy victory and a springboard to a 3-0 start that also included a win at Texas.

No. 5 2015: Ole Miss 76, UT Martin 3

Yes, it was just an FCS team in Oxford, and the margin of victory was more than 10 touchdowns. I know. But it was the debut of Chad Kelly, who immediately took ownership of the team and finished the season in the Sugar Bowl. Kelly put together the third most total offensive yards during a season in SEC history, and while the losses are remembered as much as the wins from this year, Kelly’s first game was an important milestone because a lot of the winning wouldn’t have been possible without him.

No. 4 2008: Ole Miss 41, Memphis 24

Much like the 2012 Central Arkansas game, Ole Miss just needed to taste a win. Ed Oregon left the program broken mentally in addition to many other ways, and Houston Nutt did a nice job making it fun again in 2008. The team had to learn to win, and while that didn’t come until later on, a comfortable victory against Memphis was a good start, considering Oregon’s three teams beat the Tigers by a total of nine points. Also Ole Miss hadn’t scored more than 28 points against an FBS team since October 2004 against South Carolina.

No. 3 2016: Florida State 45, Ole Miss 34

Ole Miss led 28-13 at halftime before the Seminoles put up 23 straight in the third quarter to surge into the lead. Ken Webster’s injury changed the defense, and the lost lead was foreshadowing to a similar game against Alabama two weeks later. In that one, Ole Miss led a three-touchdown lead slip away. The season ended with a 5-7 record and the final game of the Freeze tenure was a five-touchdown loss at home to Mississippi State.

No. 2 2010: Jacksonville State 49, Ole Miss 48

This could easily be at number one. The Masoli-Nathan Stanley platoon was a disaster, and Jacksonville State outscored the Rebels 21-3 during the fourth quarter and then completed a 4th-and-15 pass in overtime to pull within one point. The two-point conversion sealed the win for the Gamecocks and quickly showed Ole Miss how far it was from the back-to-back Cotton Bowls.

No. 1 2014: Ole Miss 35, Boise State 13

Ole Miss was clearly getting better as a program in 2012 and 2013, but 2014 was the launch point, as the Rebels won two more games in the regular season compared to the previous year and got as high as No. 3 nationally. The first of consecutive access-bowl seasons started with the neutral site rout of Boise State. Ole Miss, with the eventual No. 1 scoring defense nationally, bottled up Jay Ajayi made easy work of the Broncos. The season ended back in Atlanta for the Peach Bowl, a blowout loss to TCU.

I first met Chad Kelly about a month after he arrived in Oxford. And give or take a little more than a month since that nightclub incident in Buffalo.

It was a junior day Saturday at the Manning Center, and several media members were huddled in corners waiting on the next herd of prospects to come down the walkway so we could get numbers and names prior to them entering the building. Kelly, who has never met a stranger, walked over to my campground area and stuck out a hand.

“Hey, I’m Chad Kelly. I’m the quarterback.”

I’m pretty sure I remember chuckling lightly at the introductory phrase. I reciprocated with my name, but didn’t call myself The Writer or The Reporter. And, even then, we all knew it was the truth with regards to Kelly. He was brought in to be the quarterback. The only question was his off-the-field behavior at the time.

He stood around talking for a few minutes. Affable. Inviting. Not an ounce of pretension despite the declarative statement that he provided moments earlier. We parted ways, and it was easy to wonder if he was politicking and if it was an act that would eventually peel away into the truth.

But over the course of his two seasons in Oxford, Kelly — save for the incident with his brother at the high school game which was overplayed — was a model citizen publicly and more than performed on the field. He led Ole Miss to the Sugar Bowl in 2015, putting up more than 4,500 yards of total offense on the season. Johnny Manziel is the only SEC player to produce more than that.

He was a leader from the first practices that initial spring. He handled things well during the sham of a quarterback race, and he didn’t retreat into a past character when a knee injury ended his college career in 2016. In terms of rehabilitation, it was an A-plus.

Multiple injuries piled up, and it took until the final pick of the NFL Draft for his name to be called. Kelly had essentially a redshirt season in Denver to get healthy, learn the system and get in better shape. The Broncos, in return, waited him out while also not putting any eggs in Kelly’s basket. There would be an opportunity, but there would also be other variables.

Denver took Paxton Lynch in the first round two seasons ago, and the Memphis product hasn’t panned out. The fans boo him when he enters during the preseason, and Case Keenum is the unquestioned starter, leaving Lynch and Kelly to figure out the rest of the depth chart.

Kelly has impressed with his stats and his intangibles this past month, going 28-of-41 in three preseason games (68.3 percent) for 340 yards to go with three touchdowns and an interception. Lynch is completing 48 percent for 102 yards and a pick.

[Related: Kelly speaks to media before preseason start]

Denver’s final preseason game is tonight against Arizona, and Kelly has the start at quarterback. That’s not indicative in the slightest when it comes to Denver’s QB1 when the season opens, as Keenum has 100 percent lock on the position. However, with an impressive performance tonight, Kelly can cement a roster spot and give Denver more belief that the answer is on the roster should Keenum sprain an ankle or move elsewhere in future years.

Lynch’s future seems very uncertain, and the Broncos would have to eat $4.9 million in cap room if they release him. Meanwhile, Kelly has forced Denver’s hand to make him a part of the franchise because it’s likely he wouldn’t clear waivers if they cut Kelly.

I’ve — mostly indirectly but some directly, as well — seen Kelly improve the people he associates with and continue the never-ending progression to escape the past and put himself in the best possible position for his career. And facing a pivotal preseason for his NFL hopes, he has delivered with one huge opportunity remaining.

Keenum is the current quarterback in Denver, but Kelly is close to forcing his way into a comfortable roster position. Otherwise, Denver runs the risk of watching Kelly be the quarterback elsewhere and hoping his perseverant path doesn’t become the error that keeps them from a more successful window.