Ole Miss enters 2026 with the kind of buzz most programs only dream about. The Rebels are sitting at No. 9 in the AP Preseason Poll, and after the best season in school history, the bar under first-time head coach Pete Golding is simple: stay near the top of college football.
That’s the easy part to say. The hard part is surviving the schedule.
Ole Miss has six preseason-ranked opponents on the slate: Louisville at No. 24, LSU at No.
11, Missouri at No. 25, Texas at No.
5, Georgia at No. 3 and Oklahoma at No. 10.
That’s a brutal lineup, and it gives the Rebels very little room to breathe.
The opener against Louisville already looks tricky. Jeff Brohm has built an experienced group, with Ohio State transfer Lincoln Kienholz at quarterback, plus a solid run game and a defensive line that can cause problems. It figures to go down to the wire, but Ole Miss squeezes out a one-possession win.
Charlotte should be a much lighter lift. The 49ers managed just one win last season, ended the year on a nine-game skid and scored only 10 points across their final three games. This one doesn’t figure to be competitive.
Then comes the game everyone will have circled: LSU at Ole Miss. Lane Kiffin returns to Oxford, and the atmosphere is expected to be as tense as it gets.
LSU brings plenty of talent, and this could carry real College Football Playoff weight early in the season. Still, the Rebels protect home turf and land a huge win against their former coach.
Florida is the kind of spot that can trip up a team. It comes right after that emotional LSU game, and Ole Miss has to keep its focus sharp.
The Rebels beat the Gators last season, but this meeting is expected to look different. With Jon Sumrall now leading Florida, the Gators may not be an SEC title threat, but they can still ambush people.
Ole Miss hasn’t won in Gainesville since 2008, and that streak continues in a close loss.
Vanderbilt shows up next after a bye week, and that timing helps the Rebels. The Commodores won 10 games last season, but they also went through plenty of roster turnover. Coming off a tough loss and extra rest, Ole Miss handles business at home.
Missouri has a way of sneaking into the early AP Poll, and it’s happened again with the Tigers ranked No. 25 under Eli Drinkwitz. This one could get interesting if Ole Miss has trouble slowing the run game, but the Rebels still find a way to grab a big home win before the biggest matchup on the schedule.
That showdown comes at Texas. It’s the kind of game that could carry CFP implications, and the road test is massive.
Texas has one of the best rosters in the country, and the quarterback matchup between Arch Manning and Trinidad Chambliss is a standout on paper. The Longhorns haven’t lost at home since 2024, but that changes here.
Chambliss delivers his Heisman moment, and Ole Miss pulls off one of the biggest regular-season wins in program history.
Auburn comes next, and the Tigers are breaking in a completely new offense under head coach Alex Golesh. They could be better than people think, but Ole Miss still gets another win in Oxford.
Georgia is another heavyweight. The Rebels and Bulldogs played two excellent games last season, and Ole Miss got the final word in the CFP Quarterfinal on a game-winning field goal from Lucas Carneiro.
This time, though, Georgia gets revenge. It’s close, but Kirby Smart’s team walks away with it.
The trip to Norman keeps the pressure on. Oklahoma has one of the best defenses in college football, and with some improvement on offense, the Sooners can be an SEC contender. The game should be low scoring, but Chambliss does enough to help Ole Miss escape with a win.
The Rebels then cruise. No drama there.
And if Ole Miss is sitting at 9-2, the regular-season finale against Mississippi State could decide whether the Rebels make the CFP. Ole Miss handled the Bulldogs last year, and the prediction here is the same result again. Chambliss finishes off what would be a Heisman-level season.
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The coaching carousel always finds a way to circle back, and this latest round of speculation has put a familiar name back in Mississippi conversation. Dan Mullens history at Mississippi State still carries weight because he proved he could build a program there into a consistent winner, and any talk of a return inevitably gets measured against the standard he set before leaving for bigger jobs.
Brian Kelly has also been mentioned in the same breath as a possible homecoming to Cincinnati, which adds another layer to the broader what-if debate around coaches returning to places where they once thrived. For Mississippi fans, the bigger question is less about nostalgia than fit and timing, because a second act can look appealing on paper while still carrying the same pressure to match old success under very different circumstances. [Read more 🡒]
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Athletic director Keith Carter framed the effort as more than just an awards push, pointing to it as a chance to celebrate the two players and tell their stories on a national and even international stage. For Ole Miss, the campaign is a reminder that the race for attention can be just as important as the race for trophies, especially when the goal is to make sure its stars are impossible to overlook. [Read more 🡒]