Matt Luke got just what he wanted for Christmas this year.

The Ole Miss head football  coach (and Oxford resident) has juggled his share of challenges recently. He got a fantastic, good-paying job in being named football coach, but a week later Ole Miss got handed another year-long bowl ban by the NCAA for infractions he didn’t commit.

This early signing class of recruits that Luke and staff landed this week is quite a gift, and something we believe will be indicative of Luke.

He and the Rebels overachieved.

Weeks before, most pundits that rank recruiting classes had Ole Miss about 90th in the country. That won’t get many wins in the rugged SEC. By signing day, a surprise Ole Miss signee or two helped the Rebels move up in rankings to the 30s.

In other words, the underdog delivered a nice win.

One can assume that Matt Luke and staff will be thankful this Christmas that hard work paid off and good players still want to be Rebels.

There’s still a lot of work to do by this new coaching staff, but this early recruiting success shows everything is moving in the right direction.