Ole Miss is bringing plenty of familiar names and headline-grabbing newcomers into fall camp, but the Rebels also have a handful of quieter candidates who could force their way into the conversation.
That group matters. Every season, teams find contributors who weren’t circled by everybody in the preseason. For Ole Miss, the first wave of camp will be a chance for a few under-the-radar players to show they belong in the mix for a team chasing another College Football Playoff run.
One name to keep on the defensive side is Ladarian Clardy. Pete Golding and the defensive staff clearly valued him in the 2025 recruiting class, and the former consensus four-star safety chose Ole Miss over Florida State, LSU, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt, among others.
As a true freshman in 2025, Clardy didn’t put up eye-catching numbers, but his role grew late in the year. He played in just three of Ole Miss’ first seven games, then saw his snaps rise from Oklahoma through the Fiesta Bowl semifinal.
At 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds, Clardy made the most of a thin position group and finished with seven tackles, including three in the Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl. This summer, the path to steady playing time gets trickier with three first-year transfers added to the safety room, but his talent and the continuity around him give him a chance to grow into a bigger piece of the defense down the line.
The tight end spot is another place where an overlooked Rebel could matter. Junior Caleb Odom is one of only two returning players among Ole Miss’ seven leading pass catchers from last year’s 13-win team.
At 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, he offers a different kind of receiving threat. Working as the second and third string tight end as a sophomore, Odom caught 19 passes for 197 yards, averaged 10.4 yards per catch, scored two touchdowns and added a two-point conversion against Miami in the semifinal.
He heads into camp in position to get regular first-team work as a first or second string tight end. That could be important, because Ole Miss and John David Baker’s offense has been at its best when the tight end is heavily involved in the passing game. Odom may end up being the Rebels’ top receiving option at the position this fall.
In the backfield, Makhi Frazier is another name worth tracking. He drew attention in spring camp when Kewan Lacy was dealing with a shoulder tweak, and that early run gave Frazier a real chance to show what he could do. Lacy has taken most of the spotlight after a record-breaking year and with a Heisman hopeful season ahead, but Frazier is the sort of player who can sneak onto the field if the workload shifts.
The 5-foot-10, 225-pound junior ran for 520 yards at Michigan State in 2025, averaged 4.5 yards per carry and scored twice. He calls himself a “downhill runner.” How Ole Miss uses him during camp will be worth watching.
Up front, former Florida defensive tackle Michai Boireau arrived through the transfer portal with plenty of attention, but the conversation has cooled since then. That’s despite his massive frame at 6-foot-5, 355 pounds.
Junior Will Echoles has drawn most of the buzz at defensive tackle, and for good reason. He could become a first-round pick and will force every offense Ole Miss sees this season to account for him.
That attention on Echoles could create openings for Boireau. In two seasons with the Gators, he recorded 35 tackles, two sacks and an interception in 17 games. He may not be getting much national talk right now, but his name should come up more as summer and fall progress.
There’s also no way to call Caleb Cunningham low-profile around Oxford. Ole Miss flipped the former five-star receiver from Alabama late in the 2025 recruiting cycle, and his decision to stay put after the coaching fallout says something about the trust he has in the current setup. Ole Miss already knows it has its quarterback for 2026, but the bigger question is what the wide receiver room will look like around him.
That group has plenty of talent, and it should be one of the more interesting position battles to follow. Underclassmen won’t often get a lot of room to grow in a win-now offense like this one, but Cunningham is the exception as a redshirt freshman in 2026. If camp goes well and he keeps building his grasp of the playbook, he could carve out real snaps on a team that expects to contend.
Ole Miss’ first media availability of the month is set for Thursday, Aug. 6, when Pete Golding and select players are scheduled to speak at the Manning Center.
In Other News...
Suntarine Perkins Could Define Ole Miss In A Brutal 2026 Race
Fall camp is arriving with Pete Golding entering his first full season in charge, and the attention around Ole Miss is already tilting toward the defense. The Rebels have built part of their offseason plan around reloading that side of the ball, mixing in transfer additions with returning starters as they try to give themselves a chance against a demanding schedule.
Suntarine Perkins sits right at the center of that conversation because Ole Miss knows it will need disruption, not just depth, to survive what is ahead. The Rebels are looking for a defense that can hold up against the run and still get after the quarterback, and if Perkins makes good on his potential, he could end up shaping how far this team goes in a season where every Sunday morning evaluation is likely to matter. [Read more 🡒]
Trinidad Chambliss Is Suddenly In The National Spotlight For Ole Miss
Ole Miss has spent plenty of time in the national conversation this season, but Trinidad Chambliss is the name getting pulled into a much bigger spotlight. On The Pat McAfee Show, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit went out of his way to say he does not view Texas quarterback Arch Manning as the face of college football in 2026, instead pointing to Chambliss as the more likely candidate because of the way he has played and carried himself.
Herbstreit still acknowledged Mannings talent and family pedigree, which only sharpened the point: there is room for the narrative to change if Chambliss keeps building on what he has already shown. For Ole Miss, that kind of attention is both flattering and fragile, because the national buzz around a quarterback can vanish as quickly as it arrives if the next stretch does not match the moment. [Read more 🡒]
Trinidad Chambliss Now Faces The Expectation Every Ole Miss Fan Feels
Trinidad Chambliss heads into the 2026 season with Ole Miss carrying a lot more than the usual quarterback duties. After a legal win cleared the way for him to return, the Rebels now have a signal-caller whose profile has surged well beyond Oxford, helped along by the kind of praise that turns a good offseason into a national conversation. With preseason buzz already pointing him toward the Heisman Trophy race, Chambliss is no longer just a key piece for Ole Miss, he is one of the biggest reasons the Rebels will be watched closely from the start.
Kirk Herbstreits recent praise only added to the spotlight around Chambliss, and the quarterback has acknowledged the pressure that comes with that level of attention. For Ole Miss, though, the larger question is the one Pete Golding keeps putting back at the center of the discussion: how Chambliss performs when the games matter most. The expectations are unmistakable now, but the season will still be defined by whether he can turn that hype into postseason results. [Read more 🡒]