Everyone Nuts for Houston Nutt

By CHRIS TALBOTT, Associated Press Writer

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - The first time Houston Nutt met his players at Ole Miss last winter, he asked a simple but painful question: How many had been to a bowl game before?

"And not one guy could raise their hand,'' Nutt said.

So Nutt made every player on the team promise the seniors a trip to the postseason. A year later, the No. 20 Rebels are preparing for a sold-out Cotton Bowl against Texas Tech, there aren't enough scholarships for all the high-end recruits who want to play for Nutt and all those disappointments during four long losing seasons are forgotten.

Call it the power of positive thinking.

"God put him in our lives for a reason,'' senior receiver Mike Wallace said. "This is the best thing that's happened, this group of coaches. Not just coach Nutt, but everyone around him. Everybody's positive, every single person on the staff. I wish I had another year or two with them, but I'm glad I had one year of a positive experience with these coaches.''

Talk about a dramatic change.

When Nutt and his coaching staff took over at Ole Miss, the entire team was demoralized, beaten down by four straight losing seasons. Ole Miss lost every Southeastern Conference game for the first time in 25 years. And it won just three games for the third straight season, sneaking past clearly inferior teams to reach that total.

Athletics director Pete Boone hired Nutt two days after the season ended, and he was introduced to a standing room-only crowd of more than 1,500 cheering fans.

The new-look Rebels got off to a halting start, but after five straight wins, a second-place finish in the SEC West and their first bowl invitation since 2003, players credit Nutt with not only turning around the football team but bringing a little light into their lives.

"It's basically night and day,'' offensive lineman John Jerry said. "We went from night and now it's day.''

The 51-year-old Nutt has had similar results everywhere he's been a head coach. He guided Arkansas to the Citrus Bowl and nine wins in 1998, his first year with the Razorbacks, after two 4-7 seasons in Fayetteville. And he used a similar formula for quick turnarounds at Boise State and Murray State.

On the practice field, Nutt strolls around joking with players and coaches. In the hallways, he's a got a smile for staffers. Everyone has embraced Nutt.

"This is the way Nutt has always been," said Mike Markuson, who's been an assistant coach under Nutt for 16 years. Nutt had a smile on his face the very moment Markuson picked him up at the airport to start his first head coaching job at Murray State, and little has changed over the years.

"He's always so positive, always has a good word,'' Markuson said. "He gets on them but he's not a guy who flies off the handle. He doesn't have too many bad days.''

There have been a few this season, though. Doubts crept in as bad habits continued to trip the team under Nutt. There were the penalties that cost the Rebels the Wake Forest game and the turnovers that allowed Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Alabama to escape with wins. And with each loss in a 3-4 start, the heads dropped a little bit lower.

Even Nutt started to feel negativity creep into his mind after six fumbles against Vanderbilt, including one on the goal line to cement the loss.

"Boy, I tell you what, coming out of Vanderbilt when we were on the 1-yard line and we were getting ready to score, and you fumble to lose the game, I told my wife, I said 'Diana, I don't know. It seems like we've got the perfect recipe of finding a way to lose,''' Nutt said. "It was deeper rooted than I thought.''

It looked as if Ole Miss would continue to falter after taking an early lead in an emotionally charged game at Arkansas, the school Nutt left a year earlier. But the Rebels held on for the win, then did the same thing the next week against Auburn.

After dropping the Tigers, the Rebels waited patiently for Nutt to make his way to the locker room. Players said no one took off their pads, no one hit the showers. And when Nutt entered, they swarmed him.

"He's just a great guy,'' All-America defensive tackle Peria Jerry said. "He's a nice person. We believe in him. We're trying to do everything he tells us to do.''

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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