Ole Miss has finally turned College GameDay into a familiar sight, and the Rebels have made the most of the rare spotlight when it lands in Oxford.
ESPN’s pregame show is headed back to town Saturday for Ole Miss’ matchup with LSU, giving the Rebels their seventh all-time chance to play in the GameDay game. That’s a notable run for a program that had to wait more than 20 years after GameDay launched in 1993 before getting its first shot in 2014.
The numbers tell the story pretty clearly: Ole Miss is 3-3 all-time when it’s one of the two teams on the GameDay stage, and it is 2-0 when the show comes from Oxford.
That first home appearance remains the one that still feels larger than life. On Oct.
4, 2014, No. 11 Ole Miss hosted No.
3 Alabama and came away with a 23-17 comeback win. The afternoon ended with a field storming at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, goal posts making their way through Oxford and Katy Perry celebrating at Funky’s after the game.
The Rebels were back in the GameDay mix only three weeks later, but the mood changed fast. Ole Miss traveled to Baton Rouge on Oct. 25, 2014, ranked No. 3, and dropped a 10-7 decision to No. 24 LSU for its first loss of the season.
A year later, GameDay went to Tuscaloosa and Ole Miss delivered one of its biggest road wins. No.
15 Ole Miss beat No. 2 Alabama 43-37 on Sept. 19, 2015, giving the Rebels back-to-back victories over Alabama for the first time in program history and only their second all-time win in Tuscaloosa.
Then came a six-year wait before GameDay returned to Oxford in 2021. That one went Ole Miss’ way too, with the Rebels knocking off No.
11 Texas A&M 29-19 on Nov. 13.
The most recent trips, both in Athens, were rougher. No.
10 Ole Miss lost 52-17 to No. 2 Georgia in 2023, then returned two years later and fell 43-35 to the Bulldogs.
That 2025 loss was the Rebels’ only regular-season defeat, though they got it back by beating Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, which doubled as a CFP quarterfinal game.
This weekend’s matchup has the kind of rankings that make GameDay feel earned again. LSU is seventh and Ole Miss is eighth in the AP Top 25, and it’s the first time since 1962 that both teams have been in the AP top 10 for the same meeting. Both were also in the top 10 of the Coaches Poll in 2024 when LSU beat Ole Miss in Baton Rouge.
College GameDay and Ole Miss have built a pretty memorable track record together. Saturday gives the Rebels another chance to add to it.
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Since 2016, Athens has become a regular stop for ESPNs College GameDay, with the show visiting six times for Georgia home games and often turning a Bulldogs Saturday into a campus-wide event. The 2026 schedule had already put one game in particular on the radar: Georgias home matchup with Oklahoma, a meeting that looked like an early candidate for the kind of national spotlight Athens has come to expect.
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Georgia Drawn Into Arkansas Scheduling Debate Before SEC Clash
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Kirby Smart has acknowledged the realities that come with travel and scheduling in this league, while commissioner Greg Sankey said Arkansas concerns were passed along even though the kickoff time did not change. For Georgia, it adds one more layer to a game already carrying plenty of weight, with the Bulldogs trying to handle the spotlight while the conversation around the SEC weekend keeps circling back to how the league sets these early starts. [Read more 🡒]
Kirby Smart Faces A Dangerous Georgia Problem Before SEC Road Opener
Georgia heads into its first SEC road test of the season at Arkansas with a familiar challenge for Kirby Smart: making sure the Bulldogs are locked in on the opponent in front of them, not the more glamorous game waiting down the line. After opening 2-0, the timing of this trip makes discipline and focus even more important, especially with Oklahoma looming on the schedule and plenty of outside attention ready to drift that direction.
Smart has repeatedly stressed the need to avoid complacency in SEC road games, where a team can get exposed quickly if it loses its edge. For Georgia, this one is as much about handling the moment as it is about the matchup itself, and the Bulldogs will need to show the same urgency they have preached if they want to leave Arkansas with the kind of performance that keeps the bigger picture intact. [Read more 🡒]