# 1 > Hugh Freeze kicked his brown leather boots onto his desk on Sunday afternoon and scrolled through his text messages until he found one from country singer Eric Church, Freeze has the numbers of some of Music Row's top draws in his phone, but it was Church who picked against the Rebels last Saturday morning and then spent the wee hours on Sunday celebrating with them in their locker room beneath Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium. Church had led the players in a Hotty Toddy cheer, and apparently the flim flams, bim bams and by damns had gotten him excited and. . . "he said he's sorry for dropping the f-bomb," Freeze said, chuckling. Church was only playing the percentages when he chose the Crimson Tide during ESPN's College GameDay.
# 2 > While the Rebels had won the meeting last October in Oxford, they hadn't had a victory at Tuscaloosa since 1988 and, in the 120-year history of te series, had never taken two straight. But in the Ole Miss locker room, at least, the optimism was palpable this time. Before he sent his players out on the field against the nation's No. 2 team, Freeze gave one of his shortest pregame speeches. "You can be just who you are," he told his team, "and it can be good enough." There was a hint of magic in the air last season when the Crimson Tide came to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Pop star Katy Perry visited Game Day ( and picked the Rebels, of course ). The Grove, the tailgating mecca in the center of campus, buzzed with hope.
# 3 > Freeze remembers how all the questions began. What if. . .? Can we. . .? The answers turned out to be yes. Young men in pants with wild prints and young women in sundresses descended a six-foot wall, tore down the goalposts and marched them out of the stadium after the 23-17 upset. The story each would tell would probably be better than the game. There was no fairy dust needed at Bryant-Denny last Saturday night, only an Ole Miss team that took a three-hour bus ride, then went toe-to-toe for four-plus hours more against the SEC juggernaut that has won three national titles since coach Nick Saban arrived in 2007. Can we? was suddenly We can. The Rebels were hardly dominant in a 43-37 win that lifted them to 3-0 and No. 3 in the nation, up from 15th.
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