What does Matt Luke need to accomplish to land Ole Miss job full-time? Gene Chizik lays it out
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Immediately after Hugh Freeze resigned and Matt Luke was named the interim coach in Oxford, the Ole Miss coach hot boards started making the rounds of the internet. The names mentioned for the job have been all over the map ranging from the elite (Chip Kelly) to the largely unknown (Chad Morris) when it comes to college head coaching.
One name that has been given minimal odds despite having the best opportunity to prove himself worthy of the job — Matt Luke.
After spending 10 years on the sidelines in Oxford following a four-year playing career with the Rebels — which came after his father and brother played for Ole Miss, Luke’s roots run as deep in Oxford as any coach the program has ever had. He’s already defined the position as his dream job and now that he has achieved his goal, the next step will be keeping it.
SEC Network analyst Gene Chizik recently gave his thoughts on how Luke can do just that in the coming weeks and months.
“He has to prove to everybody, starting with the AD, the fans, more importantly, the players, that he’s a calming force in this storm,” Chizik said on the SEC Network. “It’s a mess but he has got a great opportunity there. Let me tell you something, he can get this job. He doesn’t have to win double digit games to get this job. If he can win seven games, eight games, show that he has got the support of the locker room, and that he is a calming force and that he doesn’t get rattled, and he can work through all this, he can get this job.”
Considering the football program is still in the NCAA’s crosshairs, it’s hard to determine just how attractive the Ole Miss job currently is for potential candidates. If Luke can rally the troops and lead the program through the darkness of its current state, he very well could prove to be the best man to help rebuild the program the right way — on and off the field.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
