No. 9 Ole Miss enters Week 1 as a touchdown favorite over No. 24 Louisville, and the neutral-site opener at Nissan Stadium in Nashville comes with plenty of moving parts beyond the ranking next to each team’s name.
This one is going to be decided in the trenches first. Ole Miss has a strong and seasoned interior on offense, with center Brycen Sanders and guards Delano Townsend and Patrick Kutas anchoring the unit, but the right tackle spot remains a question.
That matters because Louisville brings a defensive line that is viewed as a real strength and could create real problems for that unsettled edge of the Rebels’ protection. If the Cardinals can get pressure there, Trinidad Chambliss may spend more time than he wants under duress.
The ground game is another swing factor. Louisville has a back who can tilt the whole rhythm of the game in Isaac Brown, who in 2024 became the first true freshman in program history to run for 1,000 yards in a season.
He’s become the engine of the Cardinals’ offense since then, and if Ole Miss doesn’t corral him early, Louisville can drag the game toward its preferred pace. Brown hasn’t matched that freshman production again, but he’s still a dangerous runner and can make the Rebels pay if they let him settle in.
Then there’s the quarterback gap, and it’s a big one. Chambliss is coming off a debut season in which he led Ole Miss to the College Football Playoff semifinal and paced the SEC in passing yards.
Fresh off a program-best year, he has his sights on the Heisman and more team trophies. On the other side, Lincoln Kineholz is an Ohio State transfer making his first career start with just 36 career pass attempts.
That difference in experience is the most glaring mismatch in the game.
Ole Miss also has a defense trying to prove something after an offseason of retooling. In 2025, the Rebels were right in the middle nationally in yards and sacks allowed, and Pete Golding used the portal to add key pieces in hopes of tightening things up. Week 1 will show whether that overhaul can hold up against a Louisville offense that leans on aggressive defenses and lives off turnovers.
The last piece is tempo, and both teams have clear ideas about how they want this game to look. Louisville wants a physical, run-heavy, low-mistake contest that keeps Chambliss and Kewan Lacy on the sideline and uses its backfield depth to shorten the night. Ole Miss wants the opposite: fast, explosive, and stretched out, forcing the Cardinals’ defense to chase big plays and putting Kineholz in a position where he has to answer under pressure in his first start.
That push and pull over pace may end up telling the story in Nashville.
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