One of the best moments each offseason is the arrival of college football preview magazines. Once you start seeing those pop up in stores, you know the season is inching closer to a reality. One of our favorite segments of the preseason magazines is the section featuring anonymous coach comments in the Athlon Sports annual preview magazine.

The latest edition of the Athlon Sports magazine can be purchased online here. The magazine can also currently be found at bookstores and newsstands.

The comments mentioned for Ole Miss are rather grim this year, as it appears some in the SEC have little faith in the direction of the program under Matt Luke. We don’t know who exactly left these comments or when the interview was obtained — it could have been before the NCAA announced its final decision on the sanctions against the football program and the Rebels started spring with a hot streak in recruiting — but they are very revealing if this is the general consensus around the league.

It should also be noted that the state of Mississippi does not permit contracts to be longer than four years in length, it’s unclear if this assistant knew that or not and if that fact made it tougher for Ole Miss to attract a big-time coach during its latest coaching search.

Here are some of the anonymous comments found in the 2018 SEC preview edition of the latest Athlon Sports college football preview magazine:

“I don’t care what anyone says or how they try to spin it there, this is a dead program walking. At least for a couple of years. They lost an elite quarterback and receiver because they didn’t want to hang around for the NCAA fallout, and they’re still dealing with that on the road in recruiting… There were some really qualified coaches who wanted that job, but only with a significant commitment to security. I’m talking six or seven years of commitment. I truly believe that’s why Matt (Luke) was retained. It’s easy to move on from him once it hits rock bottom… A.J. Brown might be the best receiver in our league. A physical, tough, catch anything receiver. And he can run. The question is, can (Jordan) Ta’amu get him the ball consistently? I know everyone is talking about the great numbers Ta’amu put up last season when Shea Patterson got hurt. But he wasn’t facing the best defenses in our league. He had a few gimme putts out there. I want to see if he can do it when the big boys are on the field…

Do you agree with these takes?