The excitement over Ole Miss football is palpable in Oxford and beyond.
Ole Miss football is almost sure to start its 2026 season in everyone’s top 10. The Rebels return two legitimate Heisman Trophy contenders in their offensive backfield in quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy…both bona fide college football superstars. The returning and portal-lured class around them is one of the best in America on paper.
The hopes and expectations in Oxford are at an all-time high. Just ask any realtor, rental agent, gas station owner, grocer or restauranteur in town…
Oxford is the place to be.
Real estate in our land-locked town rivals prices at ocean-front property in nearby tourist locale Pensacola, Fla. ( I checked on Zillow).
I digress.
There are a few areas of concern for the fall, we must admit, where the wicked witch might just bop our Cinderella dreams right over the ol’ noggin with.
So buyer beware.
Here we go…
Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss strides into the end zone.
LEST WE FORGET
First, let me say that I believe how chancellor Glenn Boyce and athletics director Keith Carter handled Lane Kiffin’s departure was brilliant. There was no long, drawn out search for the next mentor. The two had their hands squarely on the pulse of their football team and hired the right…the only…man for the job in Pete Golding.
He’s the polar opposite of Lane Kiffin. He’s fleshy, not plastic. Though he’s from Louisiana, he’s as Mississippi as they come. He served as the Rebels’ head coach through three College Football Playoff games and won twice. He led the Rebels to a narrow loss in the Fiesta Bowl national semifinals.
It was one of hell of a run.
But this will be Pete’s first turn as the head man in charge of everything from Gatorade flavor to game-planning. We simply do not know how this fall will go with expectations in Oxford and beyond so high.
How will the staff chemistry be? There are old but new faces all around.
How will superstardom affect the play of Chambliss, who entered last season as a footnote on the Ole Miss roster?
Has the secondary been rebuilt to SEC standards? Will the mostly portal-built defensive line find a consistent pass rush?
These questions can drive a Rebel fan crazy, if you really stop and think about it.
We can’t answer these now. We have seen what equivocates to a 30-minute episode of Friends this spring.
And they are legitimate areas of concern.
THE BRUTAL SCHEDULE
Simply put, it is one of the most difficult in the nation. The probability is that the Rebels will face Top 25 opponents in four of their first five games and seven of their first 10.
I kid you not.
Ole Miss faces potential Top 25 programs Louisville, LSU, Florida, Vanderbilt, Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma in seven of its first 10 contests. That is a murderer’s row if there ever was one. That includes two trips to Nashville (Louisville and Vanderbilt), a flight to the now Jon Sumrall-led Florida Gators, a trip to the heart of Texas to battle Arch Manning and the Longhorns and finally a road date with Oklahoma in Norman.
The home games are a highly-anticipated meeting with Kiffin and the Bengal Tigers and a renewal with Kirby Smart and his Georgia Bulldogs.
If those are the toughest seven games on the Rebels’ 2026 schedule, five of them are away from the friendly confines of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Whew.
Conquering this schedule will be a gargantuan…but not an impossible…task.
UNTIL THEN…
Until kickoff versus Louisville on a Sunday night in Nashville, we can all bask in the glory of what could be. Lord knows, we served our time through the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2000s in football purgatory, always dreaming about what it would be like to cheer for a real power.
We got tastes every now and then.
But…
We appear to be there now.
Hardly any of us truly believe last year was a one-time thing, unlike some local sportswriters at other sites who have bitched and moaned about this coming season and the unlikelihood that the Rebels will return to the CFP.
Ridiculous…Nasty…
This team has the opportunity for its ceiling to reach heights all other teams before it would envy.
And even some life-loathing sportswriters.
I better stop it now. My former cancer and newly-repaired triple-bypassed heart, which he has alluded to on his babbling podcasts, might start acting up.
Lol.
He knows we’re here just like the rest of the world knows the Rebels have arrived.
David Johnson is the executive editor at OleMiss365.com.