When Lane Kiffin walked out of Oxford for Baton Rouge, plenty of people figured Ole Miss would take a step back fast. That’s usually what happens when a coach who built the operation leaves, especially one whose roster strategy depended so heavily on the transfer portal. But Pete Golding’s first move as the man in charge has made one thing clear: the Rebels are not in retreat.
Ole Miss added 31 players through the portal, finishing at No. 14 in the class rankings. That didn’t match the top-five finishes the program had posted in each of the previous four years, but it was still only one player shy of the 32 Kiffin landed the offseason before, which was a school record.
The headliners on the new-look roster include linebacker Luke Ferrelli, offensive tackle Carius Curnie, defensive lineman Jeheim Oatis, and wide receiver Jontay Cook. For a program that has leaned on portal production year after year, that kind of haul matters.
Just as important, the Rebels didn’t splinter when Kiffin’s departure became the story. Instead, Ole Miss stayed together through the chaos and kept winning in January. Trinidad Chambliss, Kewan Lacy, Will Echoles, and Suntarine Perkins helped carry that run, and now they’re back to form the spine of Golding’s 2026 team.
That core is the real reason there’s a case to be made that this version of Ole Miss could be better than the 13-2 group that reached the College Football Playoff and pushed close to the national championship game. Chambliss and Lacy give the Rebels a rare kind of certainty, especially with some questions still hanging over the receiver room after the departures of De’Zhaun Stribling, Harrison Wallace II, and Cayden Lee.
Chambliss’ rise was one of the season’s biggest stories. The former DII quarterback started as an emergency answer after Austin Simmons got hurt two games into the year, then held the job the rest of the way and finished as the No. 8 finalist for the Heisman Trophy. His run gave Ole Miss the kind of quarterback production that can change everything.
Lacy was just as central. He powered the backfield all season, won the Doak Walker Award, and finished with 1,567 yards and 24 touchdowns. Together, Chambliss and Lacy drove the January surge that kept Ole Miss alive deep into the playoff picture.
Now they’re back with something they didn’t have a year ago: a full offseason together. Chambliss gets to build on 13 starts, and Lacy enters the year with more time to recover from the shoulder issue that bothered him late last season. For a team trying to prove it can thrive after Kiffin, that combination might be the biggest reason to believe Golding’s Rebels have a higher ceiling than the one that came before.
In Other News...
Ole Miss Has An Early Camp Battle Fans Can't Ignore
Pete Golding is heading into his first full regular season with a secondary question that could shape Ole Miss long before September gets here. The Rebels brought in a 26th-ranked recruiting class nationally, and one of the more intriguing newcomers is a four-star freshman cornerback who has already created buzz as camp approaches. How quickly he adapts in summer work will determine whether he can force his way into the conversation for meaningful snaps.
Antonio Kite is the veteran name in the mix, and his experience gives Ole Miss a real baseline at the position. Still, fall camp has a way of changing those conversations fast, especially when a talented young defender starts flashing early. For Golding, the challenge is simple enough to say and hard enough to solve: figure out whether the upside of the freshman can make this one of the most interesting battles on the roster. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Ranked Its Best Classes Since 2020 And Fans Will Debate No. 1
Ole Miss has spent the last few recruiting cycles trying to find the right balance between landing high school talent and patching holes with the transfer portal, and the review of its classes since 2020 shows why that mix has mattered so much. The 2025 group stands out for both size and upside, with a top-15 national finish, one five-star and 14 four-stars, and a cluster of names that should keep showing up around the program for a while, from Caleb Cunningham and Devin Harper to Corey Adams Jr., Maison Dunn, Shekai Mills-Knight and Trinidad Chambliss.
The bigger takeaway is how these classes have shaped the Rebels' rise in recent years, whether it was Quinshon Judkins giving immediate punch out of the backfield, Jaxson Dart stabilizing the offense after arriving from USC, or Pete Golding's first full cycle helping stock the defense with players expected to contribute quickly. The 2023 and 2024 hauls brought their own intrigue too, especially with Suntarine Perkins flashing early and the portal-heavy approach changing the look of the roster, which is why the debate over where this latest class belongs is likely to linger even after the rankings settle. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Preseason Honors Just Added Another Twist To A Familiar Debate
Ole Miss preseason hardware keeps piling up as the Rebels head into their first season under Pete Golding, and Phil Steeles All-America team only deepened the sense that this roster is loaded with recognized talent. Two Rebels landed on Steeles first team, giving the program another measure of national respect before a snap has been played, while several more were sprinkled across the third and fourth teams as the magazine continued to spotlight what Ole Miss believes it has coming back.
The list also renewed a familiar point of curiosity around the roster because not every name that has hovered around preseason attention made the cut here. For a team trying to establish its identity under a new coach, these honors matter not just as individual badges, but as a sign of how the rest of the sport views Ole Miss entering the fall, with plenty of production and a few lingering questions still attached to the conversation. [Read more 🡒]