OXFORD — The University of Mississippi football team held its final practice of the spring season Thursday before the BancorpSouth Grove Bowl on Saturday.
The Rebels practiced Thursday in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in just helmets and shoulder pads in preparation for the spring game at 1 p.m. Saturday. The game will feature four 15-minutes quarters with a running clock. Stadium gates will open at noon, and CSS will televise the game live.
“We did a little draft with our coaching staff and we tried to make the rosters for Saturday as even as possible,” Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said. “We went position by position and I think it’s about as even as we can get it. I debated on the different scenarios on what to do and I think the kids will enjoy it and the fans will, too. There will probably be some offensive inconsistencies because of the mixing and matching but we’d have that problem if we did ones and twos so we might as well divide it up and make it entertaining and very competitive.”
Freeze is looking for the team to have fun and bring great passion to the game Saturday.
“I want to see our kids have a lot of fun and have great energy, passion, and compete,” he said. “I don’t expect perfect execution because we still aren’t there in a normal practice, so I want my expectations to match what reality will bring. But I do expect them to have fun and compete.”
Through the team’s 15 spring practices, Freeze say improvements on both ends of the ball, most notably on the defense.
“Defensively, we made a good bit of improvement. Offensively, I think we still have a good bit to go but there was progress made,” Freeze said. “The real question offensively was did we get the most out of the days we had, and I think we are pretty close to that, but we are still a lot way from where we need to be when we tee it up on the first Saturday in September.”
Available through the athletics ticket office, tickets are $10 general admission, $40 for the southzone club level and free for Ole Miss students, faculty and staff. All proceeds benefit the M-Club’s J.W. “Wobble” Davidson Scholarship Fund.
Saturday’s festivities will kick off with tailgating at 10 a.m. in The Grove with food, merchandise, and children’s games. At 10:45 a.m., the team will tread the traditional Walk of Champions. At 11 a.m. on the Grove stage, Eli Manning will headline a group of Rebel greats set to take part in an awards ceremony and panel discussion on the NFL.
Other events of Grove Bowl Week are the Southeastern Conference Women’s Tennis Tournament, which will run through Sunday; a free concert in The Grove with Gavin DeGraw and special guest Craig Morgan at 8:30 tonight; and a baseball weekend series against the University of Arkansas.
n In related news, senior defensive end Jason Jones was named Thursday the 23rd recipient of the Chucky Mullins Courage Award. He will wear Mullins’ No. 38 jersey throughout the 2012 season.
The award, sponsored by Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, honors the late Chucky Mullins, who had his Ole Miss career come to an end during the 1989 Homecoming game against Vanderbilt when he was paralyzed after making a tackle. After returning to his studies at Ole Miss, Mullins passed away on May 6, 1991.
The selection of Jones was announced by Freeze on Thursday night during the Chucky Mullins Courage Award Banquet, which is sponsored each year by Phi Beta Sigma and Phi Kappa Psi fraternities. Former college and NFL standout and current CBS college football analyst Spencer Tillman was the night’s guest speaker.
The No. 38 is returning to the field for the second straight year since it became just the second retired number in the Rebels’ storied football history in 2006, joining Archie Manning’s No. 18. This also marks the second year for the award pool to be expanded to include all upperclassmen.
Jones will be recognized Saturday when Ole Miss conducts the BancorpSouth Grove Bowl spring football game.
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