HottyToddy.com’s Daily Ole Miss Sports Roundup

HottyToddy.com is giving readers a roundup of all the commentary and information about the Ole Miss Rebels from various publications around the Web.

Readers will be able to check out the latest information in a single post every day throughout the year. Here at HottyToddy.com, we are doing all the leg work to find the information that people may want to hear about Ole Miss sports.

Today’s roundup features ESPN, Ole Miss Sports and Saturday Down South.

Ole Miss’ defensive line looks to take the lead in 2016

Before Ole Miss’ football team opened spring practice, the defensive line huddled to make one thing clear about its role in 2016.

“We have to be the leaders of this program,” sophomore defensive tackle Breeland Speaks told ESPN.com earlier this month.

Pretty cut and dry. Pretty accurate.

On a team that returns arguably the SEC’s best quarterback from last year in record-breaking first-year starter Chad Kelly, the foundation of leadership — and performance — for this team will come from the big guys who aim to make Kelly miserable in practice.

This wasn’t a coaching challenge, either. This was something the linemen themselves decided shortly after the end of Ole Miss’ 2015 season. They looked at the pieces coming back and realized that with the numbers they had and the talent ready to burst within the group that this was going to be the heart of a team looking to make its first-ever trip to the SEC championship game in Atlanta.

Courtesy of Edward Ashoff and ESPN

Gamble, Miller Ole Miss Nominees For SEC McWhorter Scholarship

2015-2016 Men’s Golf
Photo by Joshua McCoy/Ole Miss Athletics.

Forrest Gamble of the Ole Miss men’s golf team and Jennifer Miller of the Rebel soccer team have been nominated for the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship by the University of Mississippi.

The H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship has been presented by the Southeastern Conference since 1986 to the league’s top male and female scholar-athletes.

The Southeastern Conference will name the 2016 recipients of the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship on April 28.

Highlights of Ole Miss’ nominees include:

Forrest Gamble, Men’s Golf, Ole Miss

SEC Men’s Golf Scholar-Athlete of the Year (2015)
Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All-American (2015)
Named to the Chancellor’s List every semester
Finished in the top-ten at the FAU Slomin Autism Invite to help the Rebels towards a first-place finish
Fired a season-low round of 2-under par 69 in the opening round of the FAU Slomin Autism Invite
Finished in the top-20 at the Shoal Creek Invitational in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama
Paced the Rebels with two rounds of even-par 72 at the Old Waverly Collegiate Championship to help Ole Miss finish second
Fired a career-low 66 at the SEC Championships at Sea Island, Georgia, en route to a tie for 11th place
Competed in every tournament his freshman season, earning his first top-five finish at the Querencia Cabo Collegiate
Physics major with a 3.97 GPA

Jennifer Miller, Soccer, Ole Miss

Named to SEC Fall Academic Honor Roll each year of her career

Helped Ole Miss win the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Team Academic Award
Began Pharmacy School in the fall of 2015, and received her coat from the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy at one of the Rebels’ home matches
Appeared in 81 contests in her Rebel career, starting in all but 10 matches
Tied for team lead in assists with seven in 2015, helping the Rebels to their first ever Sweet 16 appearance
Served as a team tri-captain in 2014
Played over 6,500 minutes in her Rebel career totaling eight goals and 11 assists
Part of the Rebel senior class that tied for the most wins of any senior class with 51 over the four-year span
Pharmaceutical Sciences major

Each year, the SEC, in conjunction with AT&T, an SEC official sponsor, provides the league’s male and female McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship recipients with a $15,000 post-graduate scholarship.  The 26 remaining male and female finalists for the award will also receive a $7,500 post-graduate scholarship.

The award recipients are chosen by a committee of Faculty Athletics Representatives from the 14 SEC institutions and are honored at the SEC Spring Meetings in Sandestin, Fla., in early June.

Last year’s McWhorter Award recipients were Nathanael Franks of the Arkansas track & field team and Maddie Locus of the Georgia swim team.

Courtesy of Ole Miss Athletics 

Trending up or down: Team-by-team look at SEC

Photo by John Bowen

Football isn’t math. There isn’t just one answer.

And expectations are relative. Almost every SEC team could be trending upward in 2016 and still not catch Alabama, which doesn’t look as formidable as the 2015 squad that won the national championship.

Keep that in mind as we determine the direction each team is trending in 2016.

Ole Miss: Up. There’s still another floor or two of stairs for Hugh Freeze to climb. He’s beaten Alabama in consecutive years, a rarity, but also had puzzling losses (Memphis last year, Arkansas the year before) that kept good seasons from being great. The Rebels lost a lost of talent, but still have a lot of talent. They get Alabama, Georgia and Auburn at home.

Courtesy of Chris Wright and Saturday Down South

HottyToddy.com sports 

Follow HottyToddy.com on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat @hottytoddynews. Like its Facebook page: If You Love Oxford and Ole Miss…