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OXFORD, Miss. -- These should be grand times for Mississippis football program.And in many ways during Mondays first preseason practice, thats exactly how it felt. After all, the Rebels are coming off a 10-win season, including a Sugar Bowl victory over Oklahoma State, and are now a program thats viewed among the upper tier of the loaded Southeastern Conference.Senior quarterback Chad Kelly, a longshot Heisman Trophy candidate, was zinging passes. Talented defensive linemen like Breeland Speaks and Marquis Haynes looked imposing during drills. At almost every position, the Rebels had the look and feel of an elite program.I really like the look of our team, Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said. I love our coaching staff. The chemistry and consistency that weve been able to maintain here speaks to our core values and our administration.But all is not well in Oxford. An ongoing four-year NCAA investigation continues to hover over the football program, leaving an unmistakable feeling of uneasiness. Is a postseason ban coming? A suspension for Freeze? Or is it just the loss of some scholarships and a few years of probation that the university already self-imposed?Nobody knows. And until theres some clarity, the questions will continue.Freeze is adamant that while the outside world might be concerned about the NCAA investigation, it hasnt stole our joy at all.Kelly said its not even part of their world. Youre better off not reading anything on Twitter or newspapers or TV because it seems like they always want to talk about it. For us, weve just got to focus on football.Freeze and Ole Miss have good reason to make sure the focus remains on the field. The Rebels have a hard September schedule, starting with a neutral site opener against Florida State on Sept. 5. They also have back-to-back home games against Alabama and Georgia.Its not hard to motivate our kids, Freeze said. They understand whats in front of them.Kellys presence is maybe the top reason for why the Rebels are confident they can be a factor in the SECs Western Division. He threw for more than 4,000 yards in 2015 while also running for 500 yards in his first full season as a starter.There also are experienced receivers like Damoreea Stringfellow and Quincy Adeboyejo, along with tight end Evan Engram. On defense, the Rebels return five starters and several backups that had significant playing time last season. Veteran defensive tackle Issac Gross returns after missing most of last season with a neck injury and will bring what Freeze called a breath of fresh air.Ole Miss officials, meanwhile, are trying to ease off-the-field concerns.Athletic director Ross Bjork spent a sizable portion of his spring and summer addressing various fan groups. In some instances, the gatherings drew record crowds, with fans still on a high after the Sugar Bowl win and back-to-back victories over mighty Alabama.Bjork said he could sense the optimism, but also felt the concern about the NCAAs shadow.Ole Miss has already received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA, which includes 13 violations for the football program. The school released its response in May, but the case is in limbo while the school investigates more allegations involving former left tackle Laremy Tunsil.The key thats very important is saying, look, were not going anywhere. Were building a program to last, Bjork said in July. Were not a one-hit wonder. Were not just the last four years, were really building for the next 40 years.So I think thats how you have to approach it -- long-term success can happen. (The NCAA investigation) is a challenge. Its a bump in the road, but were going to get through it and were going to continue to build the program the right way.-----Follow David Brandt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidbrandtAP-----AP college football website: www.collegefootball.ap.org Cheap Basketball Shoes China . But now that hes in the NHL, the Calgary Flames centre showed big improvement in that department by scoring the winner in the eighth round of a 5-4 shootout victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday. Cheap Basketball Shoes Store . The 28-year-old from Calgary matched his career best after missing just one shot in his two rounds of shooting in the mens 10-kilometre sprint competition. Smith finished in 23 minutes 15. http://www.cheapbasketballshoesstore.net/ .C. -- When North Carolina freshman Ryan Switzer reported to training camp in August he was a little miffed to learn he was third on the depth chart at punt returner. Cheap Nike Paul George Basketball Shoes China .35 million, one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. Plouffe batted .254 with 14 home runs and 52 RBIs in 477 at-bats last season, his second as a regular in the lineup. Wholesale Basketball Shoes . According to a report from the Winnipeg Free Press, the Bombers will name Acting GM Kyle Walters to the post full time. According to Kruger van Wyk there are many things to like about his former coach John Wright, but top of the list is his humour.I remember him waiting a while before telling me that the South Africans were going to give me shit during my debut Test [for New Zealand], says van Wyk. Thinking back on it, that was probably his way of telling me I was in the team, because he was always very dry. John was very much a mans man: he had that old-school toughness and was really comfortable in those sorts of environments. The best thing about him was his sense of humour, because hed listen to things for a long time and then come in with perfect timing. In that respect he was always very good to me.Van Wyk spent the three days prior to his Test debut, in Dunedin against the South Africans in March 2012, flat on his back with a bad case of gastroenteritis. I lost 5kgs and really wasnt in the best of shape, he says. By the time it came to the Test itself he was, however, back in the saddle - slightly lighter but ready to pounce should the South Africans forget he was there and lapse into some ill-advised vloeking (swearing) or off-the-cuff analysis in Afrikaans.Far from the South Africans giving him shit, the Test passed off reasonably amicably. Van Wyk had grown up with players like Jacques Rudolph and AB de Villiers and the verbals were restricted to a good-natured trickle. Chris Martin nipped [Jacques] Kallis and [AB] de Villiers out on the first day and we led on the first innings by 40-odd, van Wyk remembers. They batted well in the second innings [with hundreds to Kallis, Smith and Rudolph], and then at close on the fourth day we were about 140 for 2, with Brendon [McCullum] and Ross [Taylor] at the crease; we needed 300 runs to win with eight wickets standing on a flat track on the final day. Kane [Williamson] was due to come in at five. I think we could have been in for a very exciting final day of cricket, except that it rained on the fourth night and that was it.By his own admission, van Wyk wasnt ready for international cricket when he arrived in New Zealand. He was there because Dave Nosworthy, his former coach at Titans (in South Africa), had been recruited by Canterbury and the South Island outfit needed a wicketkeeper. Mark Boucher wasnt going to relinquish the gloves for South Africa anytime soon and the opportunity seemed like a godsend. This was a chance to reinvent himself, have an adventure and subsume himself in the New Zealand cricketing way.I think we play a boring brand here in South Africa - were one-dimensional, he says. The Kiwis ingenuity is something theyre really proud of. If they need to pick three spinners in a World T20 to beat India in India, theyre going to do that. Theyre really proud of their ingenuity. [Brendon] McCullum and [Mike] Hesson were always prepared to be brave, and thats absolutely great.While the stereotype of the canny Kiwi can be overplayed, theres no doubt that their mentalité, as the French would call it, is to put everything they have to the best posssible use - in terms of being prepared to lose as they gamble for a win.dddddddddddd Van Wyk says he loved this approach, the idea that they were exhausting every available opportunity to improve themselves, and found himself growing exponentially as a cricketer.He played nine Tests, being knocked off his perch by BJ Watling, but there is no sign of regret. Indeed, you rather feel that his sojourn turned out far better than he ever had reason to expect. Here, after all, was the boy from Wolmaransstad, a veritable Wagga Wagga of the veld. He was too small for rugby and didnt like disappearing into the wastes of the outfield, so became a wicketkeeper. His entire career was a story of scaling heights he didnt naturally reach. Van Wyk and his young family (one boy, one girl) returned to South Africa in December 2015, after nine years in New Zealand, and he became director of cricket at the Assupol Tuks Cricket Academy at the University of Pretoria. Hes hoping to back up words with deeds by inculcating a far more adventurous brand of cricket, saying that hes frequently gobsmacked at the conveyor belt of talent that the African sunshine and good facilities seem to almost carelessly produce. You have to allow players to grow outside of a structure or a game plan, to keep challenging them in different ways. Id say its a state-of-mind thing rather than a technique or set of techniques.Van Wyk has an opportunity to see what Tuks can do when they defend their Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals title in Sri Lanka early next month. In preparation for the event, van Wyk has been hard at work simulating the kinds of conditions he expects to find in Sri Lanka, roughing up wickets, underpreparing them and leaving them bereft of grass. Twenty-over cricket provides players with the opportunity to be reckless - and youve got to allow them that freedom and license.Prior to the New Zealanders hopping up to Zimbabwe, they spent a week at Tuks Pretoria facility where van Wyks boys were able to rub shoulders with the tourists. It was great, he says, for his left-arm quicks to swap notes with Trent Boult or his fast bowlers to bask in the presence of, say, Tim Southee.Unlike the South Africans, who havent played much recent Test cricket, the visitors look well-grooved. Kingsmead, the venue for the first Test, has been known to be unkind to home sides in recent years, and the New Zealanders will probably be closer to where they want to be than the hosts. Its increasingly tempting, in fact, to see the two teams as different sides of the same ball: South African cricket is in the midst of blithely frittering away its riches (some of those riches heading for New Zealand), its Test outfit less successful than it should be. By contrast, New Zealand make best use of what they have, proud to innovate and bold enough to try. Its the very shift Van Wyk is trying to initiate with his young charges. ' ' '