Hugh Freeze was hired by Ole Miss in December of 2011 and ever since then it's been one big love affair between him and the Rebels fanbase. Freeze took the 2011 Ole Miss squad that gave up on Houston Nutt and went 2-11 and turned them around in one year to a 7-6 team that won their bowl game by 21 points. And then came the recruiting landslide. Ole Miss finished sixth in the Nation in our cumulative recruiting rankings and right now there is a ton of positive momentum in Oxford. 

When Texas A&M and Missouri made the move to the SEC, the popular thought was that the Tigers had a better shot at being successful in 2012. We were wrong. The Aggies exploded and the Tigers struggled. But the Tigers weren't as bad as their 5-7 record would lead you to believe.

It's the off-season. Recruiting has come and gone, girlfriends have received well deserved scholarships and moms have gotten needed jobs. Now we wait until spring camp starts, follow the NFL draft and hope the players from our favorite schools use their time productively. Each week during the off-season I will take a look at my favorite college football links from the past week and also dip my big toe into pop culture.

This article was originally featured over at The Saturday Edge and split up into East and West rankings. Since then recruiting has been finalized and we now have a truer picture of what the quarter back grouping of 2013 will look like. Here is how I see the SEC QB groups heading into the 2013 season:

College football recruiting has developed into a big money business over the last few years as we've seen more and more sites and individuals covering this aspect of the sport on a year-round basis. I have a basic level of interest in recruiting but honestly I'm more interested in what goes on inside the lines. I was mostly unplugged from media chatter today as the top prospects (not including the kids who are already on campus as early enrollees)  faxed in their letters of intent.

While I have a passing interest in recruiting, there is no doubt of it's importance in the sport. If you look at rival's recruiting rankings from 2007 to 2011 you will find that five of the top ten teams in terms of recruiting during that time period finished in the AP Top 10. Three more AP Top 10 finishers finished in the top 15 in the recruiting rankings. The only two teams that finished in the AP Top 10 this past season that didn't finish in the top 15 of recruiting rankings over the last four years were Stanford and Texas A&M. 

I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the 2009 quarterbacks that were recruited by SEC schools. Why? Because these are the players that would be leading their teams into the 2013 season if they had taken the usual route of red-shirting their freshman year on campus.

Fourteen SEC schools signed nineteen QBs in 2009 (yes I'm counting Missouri and A&M even though they weren't in the conference in 2009). Eight of those nineteen QBs were ranked in the top 20 of their recruiting class by Scout.com Of those nineteen, three are current starting QBs for the team they originally signed with, three played receiver or tight end last year and eleven are no longer with their teams for reasons other than graduation or using up their eligibility.

Let's take a look:

Since 2008 the Vols have had four different head coaches. Former Cincinnati head coach Butch Jones is the latest that will try to right the ship in Knoxville. Jones took over for Brian Kelly at Cincinnati and went 4-8 in his first season before going 19-6 over the last two years. Jones brings Mike Bajakian and John Jancek with him from Cincy as his coordinators. This trio had a good run at Cincy sharing the Big East crown each of the last two years but you have to wonder how long it will take them to get acclimated to the weekly grind of SEC football.

2012 was supposed to be a special year for the Razorbacks. They were coming off of an 11-2 season and were looking to take the final step in the SEC West arms race against Alabama and LSU. Instead of taking a step forward, the Razorbacks took a giant step backwards as their season started to unravel before they even hit the field and when it was all said and done the Hogs whimpered to a 4-8 finish in which they won just two SEC games. 

First mock of the new year and the time for draft hysteria starts now. The combine is coming up in a few weeks and that, and individual workouts, will start changing the game for a lot of these guys. This is one of the harder draft classes to peg over the last ten years as there is so much parity between players with guys that could go Top 10 or drop to #40 and it wouldn't seem that big of a shock. Lots of depth here but not much on star power.  

1. Kansas City Chiefs = Luke Joeckel OT Texas A&M
2. Jacksonville Jaguars = Damontre Moore DE Texas A&M
3. Oakland Raiders = Star Lotulelei DT Utah
4. Philadelphia Eagles = Jarvis Jones OLB Georgia
5. Detroit Lions = Bjoern Werner DE Florida State
6. Cleveland Browns = Barkevious Mingo OLB LSU
7. Arizona Cardinals = Eric Fisher OT Central Michigan
8. Buffalo Bills = Geno Smith QB West Virginia
9. New York Jets = Chance Warmack OG Alabama
10. Tennessee Titans = Dee Milliner CB Alabama

The most exciting moment of this years Senior Bowl was the opening kick-off. Southeastern Louisiana's Robert Alford took the ball and shot through the middle of the kick coverage and went 85 yards before being brought down at the opposing fifteen yard line by a face mask tackle. From that point it was a pretty tough game to watch if you were tuning in to see the offenses excel.