The Ole Miss fanbase: the gift that keeps on giving.
The damn shame in all of this is that we haven't taken advantage of the situation. It may well happen eventually, but we've missed some golden opportunities.
I do not think it is possible to take advantage like we all want. I am starting to think both programs are better when they both are good, and thus competing.
How did we not take advantage after 1994? We followed that up with 3-8, 5-6 and by the time we were winning again, so were they, and Tuberville was beating us for recruits like Deuce McAllister and Doug Buckles.
How did they not take advantage after 2003? I mean, wow. They followed that debacle up with 4-7 and firing a very successful coach and hiring an idiot. Hindsight shows that this was even more stupid that it seemed at the time.
Those are the two big ones, in my opinion. You might look at 2008 for them, and 2011 for us, but those are minor and the tide was turned back due to a good hire for the other school.
We are in a similar spot now, and the technical year to take advantage was after 2016, because that is when Freeze was fired. Have we done it? We went 8-4 two years in a row. We ate their lunch in recruiting in 2017 and 2018, while 2019 evened out, though I feel we got the better class regardless of rankings. They did not hire a good coach after 2016 either, like they did in 1994.
So, in closing, maybe we will see a big gap emerge in the next few years, because our recruiting has been pretty good and theirs has been fair at best. But, I agree, it has not seemed as if we have done anything about their misery. I guess we will see, and these things take time to fully germinate. Either way, they will fire Luke after this season, get a pretty good coach, and start to rise again and the cycle will continue. We can look at it like a missed opportunity or just look at it like reality, and reality says they are not going away.