48: Cody Ridgeway

Rebel Rex

Today’s guest is another on the long list of punters we’ve been fortunate to have. Cody Ridgeway was an outstanding student and athlete at Ole Miss that attended Ole Miss from 2000 to 2005. When he left, he was the 6th best punting average in Ole Miss history. Cody came from Jackson, Tennessee in a family that had talent; his father was a place kicker for the University of Alabama.

With family ties to Alabama, Cody had several scholarship offers but he knew SEC football and that’s what he loved. Alabama didn’t offer him a scholarship that took them out of the equation really fast because as a kid coming out of high school, Cody wanted to go to a school that really wanted him. He went through recruitment and it really came down to Ole Miss and Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was still in the Big East and was doing good things with Michael Vick on their team but there was just something about SEC football. The opportunity to go play at a first-rate school like Ole Miss and play under Coach Cutcliffe came along and it was too good to pass up.

I ask Cody what he remembers most when he looks back at his time at Ole Miss and obviously the run they had in 2003 sticks out in his head. It was something very special and he thinks that LSU game, even though it was a loss, is still one of those games that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up if you watch replays of it. He also remembers a big win against Florida at home when they were ranked 2 or 3. The big Cotton Bowl win at the end of the season of course couldn’t be left, out but he says there are just too many memories to list.

Cody still keeps in touch with his former teammates and makes it down to Oxford for several games each year. Ben Claxton, Rick Razzano, Jonathan Nichols, Lee Rogers, Marcus Johnson, Brian Lester, and Eric Rice are just some of the teammates Cody keeps in touch with thanks largely to social media that wasn’t around when they were at Ole Miss. Had this level of social media been around when he and his buddies were there, there probably would have been just as much trouble with it as there is now. He says the athletes did not change overnight, and he remembers hearing stories from his dad and his college football buddies and says they weren’t that different from what the Rebs did when he was there and thats not too different from whats going on now. Besides social media, the internet as a whole and the how quickly the information is readily available has really made an impact on the spotlight on these guys. There was incident after the game this past weekend in which an Ole Miss fan said something to Coach Freeze and its quite obvious in the video that he took exception to what was being said; no matter who you are, coaching staff or player, anything you say is subject to being recorded.

During his time at Ole Miss, Cody was an incredibly serious student and was an academic All-American Honors, Chancellor’s Honor Roll as a banking and finance major with a 3.89 GPA. Since then, Cody was picked up by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie mini-camp and went through that before not getting picked back up. He took a job with a boutique investment bank selling bonds to banks and municipalities in Charlotte, North Carolina. He stayed there about a year but it wasn’t his cup of tea; he didn’t feel like he was learning enough in that environment. He then had the opportunity to move over to Bank of America’s investment bank and went to work in a group called Debt Advisory where they looked at every investment banking deal worldwide at the time from a credit ratings perspective. They looked at all the mergers and acquisitions worldwide and performed a quantitative and qualitative analysis and would then give their opinion as to where the deal would shake out as is and they would give their recommendation to finance the deal in other ways to maintain the highest quality of credit. From there, Cody’s father got sick and he ended up moving back to Jackson, Tennessee to take care of him and worked remotely for a little bit. That was too much and he chose to take a leave, went back up and finished his program with Bank of America, and then moved back to Jackson and helped his brother get the family business back in order after his father passed away. He’s currently in Jackson, Tennessee running their restaurant called Catfish Cabin that has been there 33+ years and weathered the storm of a catfish shortage and the bad economy and things are going well. He believes they’ve finally got it back to a place where he may be soon looking for a job back in the finance world. He’s done a few things but most of all focuses on just working hard and has been able to take a few of the things he learned throughout his athletic career and apply them to the working world.

After the loss against A&M, its important to move on and focus on the LSU game this weekend. Cody points out that historically we always play LSU tough and its a huge rivalry game where everyone will be fired up. Sure, the team may be a little banged up, but everyone will come ready to play. Everyone will bring their A game and he’s excited the program is in good hands and is headed in the right direction. Cody points out that hopes have probably gotten too high too fast and says that the Rebs were honestly way behind the curve when Coach Freeze came and Freeze is way ahead of the curve that he’s working on. Cody thinks that anyone and everyone who is an Ole Miss fan should be excited about supporting the Rebels and where they’re headed. They’re out there having fun and they’re competitive. He remembers not too long ago watching these games and seeing the Rebs not be competitive at the half but they are now. In regards to LSU with a banged up front, we’ll see what happens. They’re a big physical team and they’re playing really good football right now. It would be a large challenge for the Rebels even if they were all healthy but we’ll see. He expects the Rebels to have a great game plan in place and for the players to be ready and play hard for 60 minutes and see what we can make happen.Cody think that had you asked anyone two years ago when Hugh Freeze took the job that we’d be able to be competitive with Alabama, Texas A&M, LSU, and anyone else on the schedule in year two, everyone would’ve said I’ll take it. Whats happening now is the team went 3-0 and the fans got a little ahead of themselves and expected too much. A lot goes into building not only a team but a whole new program and its not something that happens overnight. Its exciting to be a part of it but you have to remember that its a process.

If you want to keep in touch with Cody, be sure to follow him on Twitter @Ridgeway97!