The Most Important Rebels, No. 24: Denzel Nkemdiche

OXFORD -- Welcome back to what is quickly becoming a Clarion-Ledger tradition: the 75 Most Important Rebels.

If you're not familiar, each you we countdown the players who matter to the success of Ole Miss football. This is not a straight talent-evaluation: role matters, which means a true special-teamer (long-snapper Will Denny, for example) is more valuable than the third-team left tackle.

No. 24: DENZEL NKEMDICHE

Position: Outside linebacker

Year: Redshirt junior

Height/weight: 5-foot-11, 201 pounds

In 2013: Nkemdiche's second season on the field never really got off the ground. He suffered a knee injury in week 1 against Vanderbilt, which forced him to miss the Southeast Missouri, Texas and Idaho games. When Nkemdiche did return, the preseason All-SEC pick found himself sharing time with Serderius Bryant. All of which led to a season in which his 35 tackles were less than half of the 82 in 2012, and he was not nearly as impactful in big plays (from three sacks, 13 tackles for loss, four forced fumbles and three interceptions to zero, two, one and zero). Nkemdiche was still named second-team All-SEC by the AP, but it was a curious decision (and the way the AP conducts its all-conference voting, likely a result of one individual mindlessly filling out his ballot in this way). Bryant was simply the most deserving choice of the two.

Offseason: It was bad. Really bad. Nkemdiche was arrested in mid-February on charges of disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct. He, along with brother Robert, was also the subject of a civil suit over an alleged frat house beating that remains ongoing, and also was caught behaving poorly while on spring break. Coach Hugh Freeze put the hammer down on Nkemdiche, suspending him from the team for the duration of the spring and declaring him out of the Aug. 28 season-opener against Boise State. Nkemdiche earned the right to rejoin the team for workouts after spring practice was concluded, a positive sign.

In 2014: Twelve months ago Nkemdiche was in many ways seen as the heartbeat of the Rebels. Injuries and poor decisions took him away from the team, and something happened: the thing did not blow up. Bryant proved to be more than capable. There's some thought that whoever was the outside linebacker in Ole Miss' 4-2-5 defense the last two seasons was going to put up numbers, because coaches recognized a defensive front short on pass-rushers and responded by having bigger ends like Cameron Whigham and Bryon Bennett hold up blockers and let the linebackers run around and make plays.

A healthy, focused Nkemdiche still has a lot of value to Ole Miss. Him and Bryant are both undersized and missed time last season with injury, and it's likely that happens again in 2014. When it does, you can replace one by giving more snaps to an All-SEC-caliber player. That's a good deal. And maybe everything that happened since January motivates Nkemdiche in some way to get back to the player he once was. There's some Rick Vaughn comparables at play here.

Previously:The Most Important Rebels: 75-66 | 65-56 | 55-46 | 45-36 | 35-26 | No. 25 Justin Bell