Beating Florida adds punch to Ole Miss recruiting

It didn't take Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt long to find out just how big last Saturday's 31-30 victory at then fourth-ranked Florida was.

Sure, there was the expected enthusiasm in Oxford, and the repeated love they got on ESPN all weekend. But this was different.

Nutt and his assistant coaches were bombarded with phone calls Sunday night. The good kind, as in calls from recruits.

''It's already helped us,'' Nutt said. ''We got more calls Sunday night, them calling us, than we've had since we've been here. Monday night is a good phone call night for us after film study, so I'm anxious to get on the phone. It can't do anything but help.

''We got a lot of Florida calls this past weekend from Florida athletes. It'll help us. You can mark that down. That past Saturday against Florida helped us in recruiting, no question.''

It's just a flesh wound

Immediately following the game, Nutt learned that he might need to add a new drill during practice. Apparently, no one ever taught the Rebels the art of dumping the Gatorade jug on their coach.

Their attempt to douse Nutt after beating the Gators left Nutt with a bloody gash on his nose.

''After the game, I think one of our seniors asked one of the coaches was it OK to pour Gatorade on the coach, and they said, 'Yeah, go ahead,'" Nutt said. ''But they haven't had too much practice because they hit my nose. I don't feel nothing and then the trooper says, 'Hey, you're bleeding.' But they've got to get better at that. I hope they can get in a lot of practice at it.''

You snooze, you lose

Junior Reid Neely started at right guard in place of Maurice Miller. That was because Miller overslept Friday morning and was late.

''Not a big deal, but you're late,'' Nutt said. ''Get a better alarm clock or something. It was just a bad deal, nothing big. Reid came in and did a very nice job. What's good is Maurice felt bad about it. He was on the sideline, in the game. Now John Jerry's down, 'Mo, you've got to go. You're at right tackle now.' So it really kind of worked out pretty good. It's just a good lesson for everybody. You've got to be on time. You've got to do things right.''

Jerry suffered a shoulder injury, but is expected to return to his starting spot at right tackle. As for Miller returning to his starting spot at right guard?

''We kind of like the way things ended up,'' Nutt said. ''I like competition like that. It's not going to be let's go back and start. We've got to see how (today) and Wednesday plays out here.''