Ole Miss wide receivers coach Grant Heard wanted to puke when he initially heard the “Feed Moncrief” anthem.
The video, titled “Rebelz (Feed Moncrief),” is a catchy tune by a pair of Ole Miss students using the rap moniker King Kobraz.
It first hit the Internet during the 2012 season and a fine-tuned version was released last January before Ole Miss’ bowl game with Pittsburgh.
Heard, who played at Ole Miss and was a part of coach Hugh Freeze’s staff at Arkansas State, could barely watch it.
“They never made a video about me,” joked Heard, who reflected on the video Thursday night as guest speaker at the Southwest Mississippi Ole Miss alumni dinner at Fernwood Country Club.
Tacky or not, “Feed Moncrief” was somewhat warranted. The sophomore receiver from burst onto the scene in 2012 with a string of breakout performance in the latter half of the year.
In Heard’s first season as receivers coach at Ole Miss, he witnessed a huge transformation in Donte Moncrief, who had 31 catches for 454 yards and four touchdowns as a freshman.
“My first impressions were, I just didn’t know how good he really was,” Heard said. “I heard everyone say, ‘He can play, he can play, he can play,’ and throughout the year I saw he can play.”
Moncrief was Ole Miss’ most explosive offensive weapon as a sophomore and hauled in 66 passes for 979 yards and 10 touchdowns.
The Raleigh native strung together his best games of the season in the Rebels’ final three regular-season games.
Against Vanderbilt, LSU and in the Egg Bowl versus Mississippi State, Moncrief had 21 catches for 408 yards and five touchdowns.
“He’s just matured and gotten a grasp of the offense, which is going to help him next year tremendously,” Heard said. “It’s just his maturity, man. He’s grown up so much in just the year I’ve been here. He’s an extremely hard worker and he wants to be great.”
This spring, Heard saw that first hand as Moncrief took steps to become a leader in the locker room. Moncrief battled a minor injury toward the end of spring practice, but it actually worked out in Heard’s favor as he was able to develop some of the younger receivers.
What Heard didn’t like, though, was the alarming lack of depth he noticed.
“Injuries kind of showed us we’re not where we need to be depth wise, but that’s why we’re recruiting and out hitting the road to try and fix that problem,” Heard said.
Heard was in Fernwood for a few hours Thursday and said he’s been on the road for the past 3½ weeks.
He touched on how Ole Miss’ top 10 recruiting class this past February has helped make recruiting easier for him and the coaching staff.
“It’s been great on the road. Kids that probably wouldn’t look at Ole Miss … those kids want to come see what Oxford is all about,” he said. “It’s definitely getting us in the ball game with a lot of kids.”
But with stronger recruiting classes comes higher expectations, and in turn, more pressure. The latter isn’t something Heard and Ole Miss’ coaches seem to care about.
After a 7-6 finish, the Rebels know that record isn’t an acceptable season in Oxford, regardless of the strides Freeze made in his first season.
“I won’t say more pressure but everyone expects more things and we expect better things from ourselves,” Heard said of the upcoming season. “We put those pressures on ourselves and our fans want us to improve. I won’t even call it pressure. That’s what we expect is to get better from last year.”
