Ole Miss is a trendy pick to win the SEC West and generally expected to rise to the levels a Houston Nutt-coached team with Ed Orgeron’s players should in its second year. (This would be the same sort of situation that Florida benefited from in 2006, Urban Meyer’s second year with Ron Zook’s recruits; if it transpires, you heard it here first.)

But the team’s upcoming reality show is probably not a good way to capitalize on that momentum. First, the history of players and teams with reality shows is bleak.

Look at the Hard Knocks Wikipedia page; the five teams featured were either bad or mediocre, with a 37-43 combined record and one playoff appearance, by the 2001 Baltimore Ravens. (The greatest things to come out of those shows: Kellie Croyle and this video.)

The record of BET reality shows is mixed. There was a BET show that followed Grambling State for a year; the Tigers finished 11-1. And Vince Young had a BET reality show, which has helped his career, I’m sure.

Sebastian Telfair had a full-blown documentary about his high school days, which was better received than he once was in Yonkers or is in the NBA. Barry Bonds’ show was awful and got cancelled. Jesse Palmer’s stint on The Bachelor got him out of football and onto ESPN.

And MTV’s Two-A-Days went from a show about the most powerful team in Alabama, Hoover High, a squad that could dispatch Tim Tebow’s high school program, to Mean Girls with blocking sleds.

Is adding that to the combustible situation in Oxford really such a good idea?

Ole Miss players are escaping car fires; Ole Miss blogs are at war with columnists; Houston Nutt is antagonizing a middling SEC team by crediting the “Wild Hog” or “Wild Rebel” to his brother and not Auburn’s Gus Malzahn.

The sort of added attention a reality show would bring is probably going to make all that better, right?

Nutt’s explanation for the Rebels’ participation doesn’t inspire confidence, either:

“You know, we talked long and hard about that, went back and forth. You know we live in this world of Twitter, and this world of information that’s out there all the time. And the thing we want to be able to do is to sell to some student athletes, recruits, that hey, this is what this program’s all about, this is what are players are about. I just feel pretty good – I’ve discussed things with Gridiron U. and our players. And we’ve got to be able to handle it. And hopefully we put blinders on and go to work. They will be here a total of about two and a half weeks; maybe three if they can get here the last week of workouts in the summer. So, we’ll see how that goes.€

The Rebels’ schedule is easy: ‘Bama and LSU at home, no Florida, Georgia, or Tennessee, and no out-of-conference threats. Their talent is solid, from dark-horse Heisman contender Jevan Snead at quarterback to defensive terror Greg Hardy, and they’ve bested the Fighting Tebows, the prohibitive SEC East favorite, before, and in Gainesville.

And yet, the Rebels will tempt fate in front of camera lenses. Certainly, any publicity is good publicity. But this team has the ability to perform on Saturdays, and if they do, they wouldn’t need a silly reality show to get their shine.