I think the unsettling thing about Coach O for many inside and outside of the UM family is what he represents for UM ----- a rejection of the mindset that we are just little ol UM from Mississippi and should never expect to do any better than a 7-8 win season and a trip to a minor bowl.
This appears to be the national perception of the firing of Cut and hiring of Coach O as well. Sort of this type of mentality : how dare Ole Miss fire a coach who had winning records almost every year for a chance to be even better ---who do they think they are? ---they should know their place.
I was not one of the UM fans in favor of firing Coach Cut after one bad season. But, under the circumstances now known after his departure, it may have been a blessing in disguise. But, what really got me fired up in favor of the firing decision and hiring of Coach O was the response to Cut's firing as referenced above. My thought is that why shouldn't Ole Miss expect to compete in the upper echelon of the SEC, year in and year out? It IS time to raise the bar. And it is clear that Cut would likely never have been able to get us to that higher level of play, primarily due to his poor judgment in the hiring of assistants which led to his inability to ever really get a good handle on the defensive side of the ball. Such was his undoing. You CANNOT win titles in the SEC without a very good defense. Cut simply refused to make any positive changes to his staff or his "system", which were exposed as lacking after Eli graduated. UM had simply gone as high as it could go under Cut.
I am withholding judgement on Coach O. To-date, to his credit, he has talked a good game and shown an ability to relate to the alums and fire up and unify most of the fan base(as evidenced by the record season ticket sales). He had a good recruiting year, expecially considering his late start. The players appear to like him and are responding to his style of coaching as evidenced by the high retention rate of the returning players, their catching on quickly to his offensive and defensive schemes, and their offseason improvement in strength, speed, and stamina. He has shown that he will not tolerate a lack of discipline from the players or his coaching staff. BUT, he has still not coached a game yet. And the proof will come, as it does with all coaches, in the win and loss columns. Until he has some wins under his belt against some good opponents, I will refrain from annointing him as the saviour of UM football.
The fact that so many outside of UM are already demonizing Coach O is hilarious and tells me that we are on the right track and doing something right ----otherwise, they would not care.

Sort of like, as a conservative, I KNOW we are doing the right thing when Ted Kennedy and a handful of the usual suspects are all up in arms and whining about something.
