Houston Nutt spent a lot of time Friday talking about expectations, which was kind of odd for a team that doesn't have many -- at least from outsiders. While three souls voted Ole Miss to be first in the SEC West, the Rebels finished in sixth place by a pretty sound margin -- 27 points behind Mississippi State (though, in fairness, that was a far narrower margin than the 333 points between State and LSU).
Well, you know, again, been here 13 times. Most of the time I've been picked towards the bottom. ... A lot of people say, 'You coach better when you're not under such high expectations.' I've always been under low expectations, so most of the time I don't worry about that.
And with those modest projections in place, some focused instead on issues far removed from division races. What about Ole Miss' new mascot, a subject of much Internet speculation?
You know what? I haven't been worried about that too much. We're Ole Miss Rebels. That's what I go be. ... Our students are going to handle that. I'm going to let them handle that. What I do know, we're the Ole Miss Rebels and they're going to pick a good one.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that his indifference means Nutt was genuinely disappointed that Admiral Ackbar did not make the cut.
You know, Dan Mullen doesn't even use the "Ole Miss" part, going instead with "That School Up North." Your reaction?
I don't know. Somebody keeps telling me about that. I don't know too much about that.
Nutt would like to go to Atlanta to play the Kickoff Classic -- but wants to keep the Boise State game in Oxford. He would also like to take his team to Atlanta to play in the SEC Championship Game, but few in attendance Friday expected that.
Then again, you know what they say about Houston Nutt and low expectations.