Ole Miss kicks off its 2026 season in seven days in Nashville where it will take on the 25th-ranked Louisville Cardinals.
This will be one of the more fascinating seasons in program history. Here are eight things I am thinking about leading up to the season opener.
1. This season’s theme is validation
For me, the 2026 Ole Miss Football season will be about validation. Can Ole Miss validate itself as a consistent power in the NIL era, rather than a feel-good story like they were last season? Can Pete Golding validate that last winter’s postseason success was no fluke and that he is an SEC-caliber head coach? Will Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy validate that they are in fact the best offensive backfield in college football? Can the Ole Miss Football program validate itself as a top-end program in life after Lane Kiffin? Can the Rebels prove that Kiffin was a crucial part of the program’s success over the last six years, but not an irreplaceable one?
Ole Miss has a couple of things working against it. The first is historical precedent. It’s difficult to find an example of any program, traditional blue blood or not, losing the best coach in its modern history and maintaining its standing in the sport. That, of course, lacks context, given what Ole Miss returns at the most important position on the field and elsewhere, the manner in which Kiffin left, and the amount of time Kiffin was at Ole Miss (six years isn’t that long of a run when compared to the tenure length of most other programs’ greatest head coaches).
I think the biggest thing working against Ole Miss this season is the schedule. I think the Rebels are a better and more talented football team than they were in 2025. I am not really sure how that is disputable. But the schedule is remarkably more difficult this season. Last year’s slate included an abnormal total of eight home games and four road games. One of the road games was inside state lines (against a pedestrian Mississippi State team) and another was at a Kentucky team that ultimately fired its head coach and knew going into the season it would be one of the conference’s worst teams. The eight-game home slate wasn’t exactly a murder’s row of playoff contenders either. That’s not to discount at all what Ole Miss accomplished in 2025 and what a remarkable and historic season it was for the Rebels. They fully-capitalized on a fortunate schedule . But I think any reasonable observer can admit that this upcoming slate in 2026 is an entirely different animal than last year. Ole Miss goes to Austin to play Texas, returns to Norman to play Oklahoma, plays a top-25 ACC team in week one in Louisville, goes to the Swamp to play Florida the week after the Kiffin fueled-circus that will be September 19, and also hosts Georgia. It’s going to be a much more difficult return voyage to the College Football Playoff for Ole Miss.
If Ole Miss is able to navigate this daunting schedule and return to the Playoff, it would be a remarkable validation of the program’s standing in this modern, lawless era of college football. It would validate Golding as an SEC-caliber coach. It would validate Baker as an SEC-quality offensive coordinator. It would validate the work of Keith Carter, Walker Jones, William Liston, Denson Hollis and so many others in creating and maintaining the Grove Collective and remaining on the forefront of this constantly evolving college sports landscape. It would validate that Kiffin was a crucial cog in the machine rather than the entirety of the machine. It would also validate a fanbase that has answered the call for six years.
I don’t say all of that to set this season up as playoff or bust. I think that’s a pretty unfair and foolish lens to view the season through. I say that because it’s the reason I find this season so fascinating. I think Ole Miss has the talent to be a Playoff team, but faces a much tougher path in a year in which the college football world seems to doubt the viability of the program’s success in life after Lane Kiffin.
Needless to say, I am incredibly eager to watch this season play out. It will be wildly entertaining no matter how it turns out.
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2. I am curious about the offensive line
Ole Miss returns three starters on the interior of its offensive line with center Bryson Sanders, left guard Delano Townsend and right guard Patrick Kutas. It replaces Diego Pounds and Jayden Williams at the two tackle spots.
Terez Davis, who transferred from Maryland prior to last season, has seemingly grabbed a stranglehold on the left tackle position. Davis was a de-facto swingman sixth lineman for Ole Miss last year that never saw the field much because of the very fortunate clean bill of health the offensive line was blessed with last year. Four of the five starters last year started every game, and Townsend started 13 and played in 14.
“Terez Davis is playing as good at left tackle right now that I can remember anybody playing, to be honest with you,” Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding said at SEC Media Days. “He is a super bright spot, in my opinion, coming out of spring and seeing him move a little bit in the summer.”
Davis is the son of 12-year NBA veteran Ricky Davis. He describes his best attributes as length and power. Those seem like two pretty valuable traits when it comes to playing left tackle in the Southeastern Conference. I will take the coaching staff’s word for it that Davis looks like an above-average SEC tackle.
The right tackle spot is an entirely different story. The two candidates to start here are LSU transfer Carius Curne and Miami Transfer Tommy Kinsler IV.
At the beginning of preseason camp, Golding said that Kinsler has flashed as an SEC player and that camp would be a good opportunity for him to show that more consistently, and that camp will also be good for Kinsler because he is “a little heavier than he needs to be right now to be able to sustain in this league.”
Curne missed spring football due to an injury. Golding said he loved Curne’s ability, but cited a need for more maturity (Curne was arrested in April for drug possession and then speeding to flee arrest. Three of the six charges were ultimately dropped while he pled no-contest to the other three) and also consistency of play that is mostly lacking due to him being injured.
I haven’t seen a single second of practice or a scrimmage and won’t pretend like I have the slightest clue how the right tackle battle will shake out, but I will point out that if the head coach’s biggest worries with the two only realistic candidates to win the job are consistency and body frame for one, and maturity and health (with an arrest mixed in) for the other, that seems suboptimal.
I am also curious about the depth as it pertains to this unit. Ole Miss was fortunate last year to have its starting offensive line for the entire season. What happens this year if there is an in injury or two? Most every program struggles with offensive line depth in this modern era of the portal. I’m just curious to see what happens if a starter goes down at any point this season. It’s one of two main questions I have about the offense. We’re about to get to the other.
3. Can the receiving corps replicate last year’s production?
Ole Miss lost three of its top four pass catchers off last year’s team and five of its top seven. Deuce Alexander returns, with Lacy being the other returner in that top seven. The Rebels have an interesting group of talented but unproven players behind Alexander who will be tasked with replacing that production.
Johntay Cook is a former five-star prospect who didn’t do much in two years at Texas and then was moderately productive last year on a bad Syracuse team. Horatio Fields is another talented kid who was a blue-chip prospect out of high school that spent the last three years mired in Hugh Freeze’s dysfunctional program and offensive system. Darrell Gill caught 31 and 32 passes the last two years at Syracuse.
From there, it’s a few talented high school guys who are young and unproven, most notably redshirt freshman Caleb Cunningham, who Golding said the other day was “healthy and looking like the guy we thought he was” after spending much of his freshman season injured. Samari Reed and Traylon Ray are a couple of fellow redshirt freshmen who could factor into things.
The tight end room could be pretty good. Caleb Odom is a fascinating body-type who has seemingly transitioned to tight end full-time after splitting time between there and receiver last year. Luke Hasz was a guy Ole Miss really liked entering last season, but suffered an ankle injury that required a summer surgery that robbed him of really ever becoming a factor in the offense last year. It’s really tough to be a newcomer and miss a significant chunk of time before and during the season and then make an impact once you regain health (think 2023 Caden Prieskorn).
Point being, Ole Miss has a lot of capable but mostly unproven options behind Alexander. I think this is the biggest question I have about this offense entering this season. As great as Ole Miss has been at receiver and tight end the last two seasons, there was a time early in the Kiffin era in which having enough reliable pass catchers was a real problem. Think about 2021, in which it was Dontario Drummond, the rarely healthy Braylon Sanders, and then.. a bunch of nothing. I’m not saying that will be the case this year, but I am saying it will be a major problem for this offense if it does end up being the case.
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4. How big is the drop-off with John David Baker as OC?
That might read as a loaded question, and maybe there is no drop-off at all, but Ole Miss was top ten in the country in total offense in three of the four years Kiffin and Charlie Weis Jr. worked together in Oxford. That seems like an unrealistic expectation for Baker in year one. Maybe it’s not.
There’s obviously familiarity here with Baker being at Ole Miss for three seasons, two of which he worked under Kiffin and Weis. It’s a significant reason for why Golding made the hire. East Carolina was 130th in the FBS in total offense the year before Baker arrived as offensive coordinator. They finished 34th nationally in 2024 and 15th last season.
Baker is clearly capable. But, to me, this year in particular is much more about consistency rather than how capable he is. From the time he was hired, he and Golding have echoed that the offense is about “80 percent the same” with some different subtleties in terminology among other things. What does that actually mean? Ole Miss returns the best backfield in college football and a solid core on the offensive line. How seamless of a transition is this actually going to be? I don’t ask that skeptically. I, like pretty much all of you, have no clue what it means that the offense is 80 percent the same. Baker also seems to understand the assignment entering the year.
A couple of weeks ago, he was asked about this subject and his approach to play calling, to which he answered “If Trinidad likes it, I like it.” Baker’s performance at East Carolina is likely being overshadowed by the Kiffin/Weiss/Golding program continuity storyline. Taking a bottom-ten offense in the FBS to a top-35 and then a top-15 offense in both years he was there is an incredible accomplishment.
To me, this is what this season comes down to: can Baker, as a play-caller and an offensive schemer be 70 percent? 80 percent? of what Kiffin and Weis were? If so, Ole Miss is going to be one of the best football teams in the country and a bonafide national championship contender. If the Rebels struggle offensively, then this season could be a much different story. The reason I feel so comfortable describing this particular topic as the proverbial hinge that the season swings on is that I believe this defense will be very good and potentially elite. More on them in a minute.
Baker, to me, is the most important component to this year’s team
5. How does Baker handle the running back position
Kewan Lacy toted the football 306 times last season and did not miss a single game. He is, for my money, the best running back in the sport.
With that said, the odds of him shouldering that workload again, without suffering some sort of injury, is pretty slim. This is another instance of how all the stars aligned last season. My podcast partner Weldon Rotenberg and I repeatedly said last year that Lacy was the most important player on the entire time, because, if he went down for any period of time last season and missed any game of significance, Ole Miss wouldn’t have made the Playoff. I think any rational fan could admit that. He provided a different dimension to the Ole Miss running game that was severely lacking in 2024.
But, last year, he was the only one who provided it. With respect to Logan Diggs, who actually played pretty well for Ole Miss in the Playoff in the few plays in which Lacy was off the field, Ole Miss was toast if Lacy ever missed time — I think the offense sputtering for much of the semifinal after he had the leg injury is evidence enough of that.
This year, I think, is a different story. I really like what Ole Miss did to beef up the running back room. Michigan State transfer Mackhi Frazier averaged 4.4 yards per carry behind a horrific Spartans offensive line last year and is a guy this staff believes will not only mop up the carries Lacy can’t handle, but cement a significantly strong one-two punch.
“I don’t want him to carry the football that much,” Baker said. “To me, there is a difference in carries and touches. I think there is a difference. Running the ball that many times between the tackles, you are going to break, which he did, needing surgery in the offseason. The shelf-life of a running back is so short as is, my sell to him was, you want have the same amount of the carries but you will have the same amount of touches… and now we have a really good running backs room that can take the load off of him.”
I think this was a very good and politically correct answer by Baker, who likely wanted to say “f**k no he will not carry the football 300+ times again. That is insane.”
I think the depth Ole Miss added in the running backs room allows Baker to say that truthfully.
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6. This Ole Miss defense should be good. Can it be elite?
Ole Miss was a decent defense in 2025. It was opportunistic with turnovers at times (Dottery strip against Arkansas in the final drive), good enough in most games against a schedule that featured some pretty pedestrian offenses, and horrendous in a couple of other spots (Georgia regular season loss and the Arkansas win). It was probably the worst of the four defenses that reached the College Football Playoff semifinal.
This year will be a different story as I think the Rebels upgraded at pretty much every position group. The loss of sacks leader Princewill Umanmielen is undoubtedly a loss and was a hole to fill, but Ole Miss brought in several talented and versatile edge options. The secondary should be as deep as its been in a decade or so and I think the linebacking corps is better.
So, can the Ole Miss defense be as good as it was in 2024? A unit that showed up every week and performed, often bailing out an offense that was seemingly at the mercy of the headspace of Kiffin on a weekly basis. If it can be that good, it will give first-year power-four coordinator Baker an extremely handy support system as he navigates being a playcaller in the toughest league in College Football for the first time.
7. The Rebels definitely upgraded at linebacker
Whether it was the smooth and drama-less recruitment of Cal/Clemson transfer Luke Ferrelli, landing Baylor transfer Keaton Thomas or Georgia Tech transfer Tah’j Butler, along with the obvious strength of returning roaming Buck defender Suntarine Perkins, Ole Miss is a lot deeper and more capable in the linebacker room. A lot was made of 2025 green-dot man T.J. Dottery going to LSU, but I think Golding and the defensive staff found a lot to be desired with Dottery’s play outside of being a productive tackler with good instincts. Dottery was a good, productive player for Ole Miss in 2025, but I think it’s telling that the coaching staff did not sweat his departure to LSU a whole lot and immediately pivoted to the (risky and irresponsible) pursuit of Ferrelli — But hey, in a lawless world, sometimes you have to break the seemingly nonexistent laws.
Ole Miss was interested in Ferrelli when he entered the transfer portal from Cal, but Dottery was still with the program. Golding, when asked about his blatant tampering with Ferrelli — who committed to Clemson and was enrolled in classes for the spring semester — and in a class when he was allegedly tampered with, said this:
“The bottom line with the recruitment of Luke, he came here on an official visit prior to the Fiesta Bowl,” Golding said. “I told him, ‘I want you to be our green-dot mike, but right now we’ve got a green-dot mike. And that spot’s not going to be available until we have one available.”
Dottery left, a spot became available, Ferrelli (assumingly) left whatever class he was in at Clemson and headed to Oxford. I don’t bring this up to rehash this whole saga. It was dumb for Golding to text Ferrelli himself, I would be mad if I were a Clemson staffer, and, no, I don’t think Ole Miss will suffer any real penalties for tampering with him. I bring this up to highlight the very matter of fact message Golding allegedly had for Ferrelli when he visited Ole Miss prior to the Fiesta Bowl. If he thought Dottery was some prized, unlosable prospect, he likely wouldn’t have had this attitude.
The Rebels linebacking room will be better and deeper than it was in 2025, which will be a huge plus for the defense.
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8. What is Pete Golding like as an in-game head coach?
Golding has had as unique of a honeymoon phase — to usher himself into a job he seemingly didn’t initially want — as you will ever see in college football. What he did in the seven-week postseason run Ole Miss had last winter is commendable. It’s not just the two Playoff wins, it’s the way he managed the transition of the outgoing staff while hiring his own coaching staff, while also trying to assemble a transfer portal class for next year — all while having a narcissistic sociopath try to derail it at every turn. To me, Golding didn’t prove he is an SEC-caliber head coach solely because he beat Tulane and Georgia, he proved that he has the wit and mettle to be an SEC head coach with how he handled everything else during one of the single most screwed up time periods you will ever find in any industry for a new hire. The calmness with which he navigated last December and January and the pragmatic approach he took to everything is remarkable.
“He’s just a dude, man. He’s so consistent,” Baker said. “His ability to compartmentalize things. I just think about when I got here in December. Everything that was going on inside the building, outside the building, playoffs, the portal, transfer the portal, and oh by the way, you have to game plan a defense. Just being the same person.. There’s not a lot of people who can do that. It confirmed what I thought about him."
Now, does that mean he’s a bonafide top-end head coach that’s surely built to last? Of course not. This is a scoreboard business. Winning and losing his games will decide his fate as the head coach of the Rebels. There are so many small things, either inside or outside of his control, that go on during a game, that will be telling as to whether or not he will last as an SEC head coach. I’ll give you two examples of the point I am trying to make. Right before halftime at the Sugar Bowl, Ole Miss, who was already reeling from a defensive touchdown from Georgia, suffered a breakdown in clock management that led to them being down two scores versus one. At the Georgia 43, Chambliss threw a ball to Dae’Quan Wright near the sideline. Wright cut upfield, was tackled two yards short of the first down marker and couldn’t get out of bounds. Ole Miss had zero timeouts left, and rather than letting automatic kicker Lucas Carniero kick a field goal that would have almost assuredly had Ole Miss down 21-15 at half, the Rebels squandered the opportunity.
Was that actually Golding’s fault? I doubt it. It was likely Wright’s for making a dumb decision and not understanding time and situation. But that ultimately falls on the head coach. Am I bringing this up to point out why I think Golding can’t be a good head coach and that his clock management is terrible? Of course not. I am just pointing out the margins are so thin in this league and in this college football world, that singular mistakes like that from unproven head coaches often, fairly or unfairly, shape legacies.
Don’t believe me? Ask Jeff Lebby. Mississippi State was probably a total of seven plays from going 8-4 last season and ended up 5-7 due to game management incompetence that ultimately fell on Lebby.
Kiffin, for all his flaws, was pretty elite at game and clock management. Will Golding be the same? I tend to think so. But it’s simply unknown at this point with such a small sample size of him being a head coach.
We’ll have more on Louisville later this week as we restart this newsletter. Thanks for reading and subscribing as always. We will talk again soon.