No. 20 Rebels look to avoid annual late-season troubles

By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
Oct. 28, 2003
OXFORD David Cutcliffe has seen this before.
Time and time again, his Ole Miss Rebels have jumped out to impressive records only to lose control in a season's final weeks.
Last year, Ole Miss was 5-1 before losing five straight Southeastern Conference games. Once a nationally ranked team, the Rebels scraped together two wins against Mississippi State and Nebraska to finish 7-6.
In 2001, a 6-1 start crumbled to 7-4 after a winless November. A year earlier, 6-2 turned to 7-5 after the Rebels lost three of their last four games.
This year, standing tall at 6-2 with an unblemished 4-0 mark in conference play, Ole Miss needs a reversal of recent fortune if it is to do something it has never done win the SEC West division.
Increased attention has already descended upon the Rebels in the form of a Top 25 ranking. Ole Miss is No. 20 in this week's Associated Press poll, but the Rebels are doing more than ignoring that fact some of them are oblivious to it.
The increased attention that accompanies a national ranking has heralded the beginning of the end for Ole Miss in past seasons. The Rebels were in the polls for two weeks in 2002 before their five-game losing streak began. The year before, Ole Miss also appeared in the national rankings before their late-season slide.
While Cutcliffe denies the Rebels' meltdowns came from lack of focus, he admits the hardest part of his schedule lies ahead.
Now, the stakes are higher for the Rebels. A strong showing in November could mean more than just a respectable record or bowl game it could mean a trip to Atlanta for the SEC championship game.
Ole Miss is now 4-0 in league play since Archie Manning's senior campaign in 1970, and now his son Eli will try to do something that not even his father did bring the Rebels to 5-0 in the SEC for the first time since 1963. That year, John Kennedy was president, David Cutcliffe was nine years old, and Ole Miss won its last SEC championship.
And though the Rebels have won four straight, Cutcliffe said his team must not forget it still has four left.