Ole Miss Football is on the precipice of reaching the next echelon of college football. Last season, the team went through a dramatic head coach departure just before the College Football Playoff and still advanced to the semifinals, an accomplishment which helped them land the No. 2 portal class and thrive in recruiting.
The Rebels succeeded like never before — without Lane Kiffin — and this success is scaring other programs and figures around the league. Kiffin, now the head coach at LSU, along with Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, all made misguided, unnecessary comments against Ole Miss in recent months.
Kiffin said it was difficult to recruit while he was at Ole Miss because of the racist history of Mississippi, opening up old wounds of the state’s past. Sarkisian said it is easier to get a degree at Ole Miss because a student could major in “basket weaving.” Saban used Ole Miss as an example of what is wrong with college sports twice in his testimony to Congress in support of the Protect College Sports Act.
Kiffin spoke in an interview with Vanity Fair about his departure from Ole Miss, which was published in May. Months after attempting to poach the staff and roster on his way to Baton Rouge, La., he made a harsh comment against the state of Mississippi regarding recruits coming to Oxford.
“(Recruits would say), ‘Hey coach, we really like you, but my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi,’” Kiffin said. “That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”
New Rebel football head coach Pete Golding went on to bring in 15 Black recruits after Kiffin’s comments, including three from the state of Mississippi and three from Memphis.
The current Ole Miss 2027 recruiting class is No. 14 in the nation, higher than any of Kiffin’s recruiting classes while in Oxford. Of course, there is still time for this ranking to change, since players may decommit or receive lower player grades from evaluators, but Golding and his staff have done a stellar job in recruiting so far.
Kiffin’s worthless comments only added fuel to the fire for his return to Oxford on Sept. 19 for Ole Miss’ matchup against LSU, a game which is sure to be must-see television.
Sarkisian, whose Longhorns will face the Rebels on Oct. 24, was discussing issues with academic inequities in college sports last May and belittled Ole Miss in the process.
“At Texas, we will only take 50% of a (transferring) player’s academic credit hours,” Sarkisian said. “You may be a semester from graduating, but you’re going all the way back to 50% if you play here and want a degree. At Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree.”
On May 12, Ole Miss Vice Chancellor of Intercollegiate Athletics Keith Carter took to social media to share his thoughts on Kiffin’s and Sarkisian’s comments.
“(It’s) kind of amazing how uncomfortable our success is making some people,” Carter said.
The drama did not stop there. Saban’s testimony before Congress on June 3 may not have yielded the national attention of Kiffin’s and Sarkisian’s comments, but he referred to Ole Miss negatively on two occasions in his statements.
“The NCAA cannot enforce their own rules because every time they try to enforce the rule, there’s a lawsuit,” Saban said. “An example would be Ole Miss’ quarterback. They say he can’t play next year. He’s playing next year because of litigation.”
Of the more than two dozen ongoing eligibility cases, Saban chose to highlight the most shut-and-closed case of them all. Trinidad Chambliss was sidelined for a season due to a respiratory illness while playing at Ferris State, and the NCAA unjustly denied him an extra year. He and Ole Miss took to the courts so Chambliss could gain a sixth year of eligibility — which is really only his fourth season of playing.
Later in his testimony, Saban spoke about tampering. While he did not specifically mention Ole Miss, he was referring to the Rebels.
“We have nothing to control tampering. Clemson had a player that was on campus for a whole week, and they came and got him off the campus and took him someplace else,” Saban said.
“They” refers to Golding and the Ole Miss recruiting staff. Last January, linebacker Luke Ferrelli transferred to Clemson, then he transferred to Ole Miss. While this was a controversial situation, Rebel edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen and offensive tackle Devin Harper both left for LSU despite having signed to play for Ole Miss this upcoming season. That situation is still ongoing. Ole Miss Athletics is working to get the buyout money from LSU.
The fact is that tampering is an issue in college football. Every team does it. Ole Miss got tampered with, but they did not cry about it. Instead of talking about LSU or any other program, Saban chose to insult Ole Miss twice in a single testimony.
Recent reports also state that Kiffin fed Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney information against Ole Miss and pushed him to publicly attack the Rebels.
People do not hate on nobodies. If Ole Miss Football had not brought in one of the best portal classes or won two playoff games, Kiffin, Sarkisian and Saban likely would not have spoken out.
These comments show that the Rebels are making noise, and other people do not like it. No one with significant stature throws this much shade on Georgia, LSU or Texas, programs that have multiple national championships.
Even reigning national champion Indiana, who has the second-most losses in NCAA history and has recently burst onto the scene, has not gotten this much pushback when rising through the ranks.
Mississippi is a state that is often overlooked. Ole Miss has a smaller student population than most SEC schools. It does not have the money or history of blue blood programs, so, naturally, people drag it down when it does well. It is an easy target for more prominent schools.
Yet, the Rebels are winning like never before. Despite Kiffin’s departure, the program has not wavered in the offseason. Golding’s promotion has seemingly benefited the program to this point. High school recruiting is going well, transfers still flocked to Oxford and Ole Miss Athletics is raising more donations than ever.
These comments from prominent figures in the league have become a rallying point for the fanbase. Now more than ever, it feels like it is Ole Miss against the world.
Kevin Bolden, the assistant general manager of Ole Miss Football, posted a picture of Golding on X in the middle of May. While the comments by Kiffin or Sarkisian are not mentioned, the message was clear — nothing has changed the mindset for Rebel football.
“The only thing on the mind of a shark is to eat,” Bolden said.
