Princewill Umanmielen has already made a fast impression at LSU, but Saturday night in Oxford gives him a stage that means more than the usual regular-season spotlight.
The LSU defensive end will be back at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, this time on the other sideline, when No. 7 LSU faces No.
8 Ole Miss in primetime. It’s the first Magnolia Bowl between top-10 teams since 1962, and it also brings Lane Kiffin back to Oxford after his messy exit in December.
Umanmielen arrives as the nation’s sack leader with five, and he’s not the only former Rebel now wearing purple and gold. Linebacker TJ Dottery and receiver Winston Watkins Jr. are in the same boat, and Umanmielen said he and Dottery have already passed along tips to teammates about what to expect from Ole Miss.
Still, he says the reunion changes nothing about how he’s approaching the game.
Umanmielen came to college as a consensus four-star recruit from Manor High School in Texas and picked Nebraska over Arkansas, Florida and Washington. He was a second-team freshman All-America selection in 2023, then logged 13 tackles in 2024 before entering the transfer portal.
That move eventually took him to Oxford, where he followed his older brother, Princely. Princely put together a big 2024 season for Ole Miss with 10.5 sacks before Carolina selected him in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Princewill’s own 2025 production made him one of the portal’s most sought-after pass rushers.
He finished with nine sacks and 13 tackles for loss in 2025, which earned him third-team All-SEC honors. That sack total was third in the SEC. He also added 2.5 sacks in the College Football Playoff, with 1.5 coming against Tulane and one against Miami.
By the time this season began, he had 10.5 career sacks across 38 games. Two games into his LSU run, he has already nearly doubled that number with five more.
LSU needed the surge. The Tigers managed only 27 sacks last season, and Harold Perkins - now in the NFL - was the only player to finish with more than 2.5.
Umanmielen opened with two sacks in LSU’s 51-10 win over Clemson on Sept. 5, then followed that with three sacks and four tackles for loss in a 45-14 win over Louisiana Tech.
He’s been a major force, but he’s also one piece of a deeper LSU front that has looked dominant through two games. The Tigers have 12 sacks and 22.5 tackles for loss, with Umanmielen posting 10 quarterback pressures and breakout teammate Jordan Ross adding eight.
That front will get a real test against an Ole Miss offense that has been hard to slow down on the ground. Opponents have rushed 57 times for just 36 yards against LSU, a number that matters with Ole Miss back Kewan Lacy, who has scored a rushing touchdown in 11 straight games and is considered one of college football’s best returning backs in 2026.
There is also the question of how much pressure LSU can generate if Ole Miss’ offensive line holds up again. The Rebels did not allow a sack against Louisville, so the Tigers’ pass rush may have to work for every win it gets.
Umanmielen said Ole Miss has mobile players, which means LSU has to keep quarterback Trinidad Chambliss in the pocket and stay patient.
For Umanmielen, though, the game also carries a personal angle beyond the rivalry setting. One draft-scouting service has pointed to his tackling and run defense as areas he needs to sharpen, and a strong night against Lacy and Chambliss would give him a chance to answer that conversation.
Even so, he keeps saying the same thing: the approach does not change. He’s studying Ole Miss like any other opponent, and he believes LSU’s own execution will decide the outcome more than anything the Rebels do.
In Other News...
Lane Kiffin Just Added More Heat To LSU's Ole Miss Rivalry
Few SEC matchups carry as much history as LSU and Ole Miss, a rivalry that dates to 1894 and has grown into the Magnolia Bowl since 2008. The Tigers have controlled the series overall, leading 64-44-4, and the annual meeting has produced its share of memorable nights, from the 1959 Halloween game to the famed 1972 contest known as The Night Time Stood Still.
Recent history has leaned LSUs way, too, including a comeback win in 2024 that only added to the edge between the programs. With Lane Kiffin now adding more heat to the conversation, the next chapter in this long-running feud has plenty of built-in tension before anyone even steps on the field. [Read more 🡒]
Lane Kiffin Is Adding More Heat To LSUs Ole Miss Trip
Lane Kiffin has spent enough time in SEC theater to know how to lean into it, and this week he helped turn LSUs preparation for Ole Miss into a much louder scene. He invited LSU students to come out and heckle the Tigers during practice, using the chance to recreate the kind of hostile environment LSU will walk into on the road. The result was exactly the sort of charged backdrop this rivalry tends to attract, with signs, noise and plenty of pointed energy aimed at Kiffin and the team.
For LSU, the practical value is obvious: a little extra discomfort now could help when the real crowd gets involved. For Kiffin, the setting only added another layer to a matchup already carrying its own history, since he previously coached at Ole Miss before leaving in November. With the Tigers headed into that trip, the noise around practice was a reminder that this one is about more than just a football game. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Just Got A GameDay Pick That Fans Will Love
The buildup around LSUs trip to Oxford already had the feel of one of the seasons biggest SEC showdowns, with the No. 7 Tigers set for a primetime meeting against No. 8 Ole Miss at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Now the stage has gotten even brighter, with College GameDay heading to the matchup and ABC carrying the game as part of a broadcast lineup that includes Chris Fowler, Holly Rowe and Laura Rutledge.
For a rivalry-like game with rankings this tight, the pregame spotlight is almost as much a part of the story as the snap-to-snap action, and this one will have plenty of it. Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee and Nick Saban will be on hand for the show, joined by celebrity guest Morgan Freeman, giving the weekend an extra layer of buzz before LSU and Ole Miss even take the field. [Read more 🡒]