The College Football Playoff selection committee seeded Ole Miss Football at No. 10 in its first 2026 rankings, just inside the playoff bracket with a month of the regular season left to go. The bracket has the Rebels going back to Austin, Texas, to face the No. 7 seed Longhorns.
Ole Miss has a critical home matchup against No. 2 Georgia this Saturday. With a win, the Rebels could jump up a few spots. Currently, a home playoff game is still very possible.
The committee seemed to honor the Rebels’ tough schedule. Ten weeks into the season, Ole Miss has three ranked wins. Several of Ole Miss’ opponents were in the rankings: No. 24 Florida, No. 18 Missouri, No. 14 LSU, No. 7 Texas and No. 2 Georgia.
Even with a solid early ranking, the Rebels did not appear to care about these rankings. Head coach Pete Golding spoke about the fragility of early CFP rankings in a press conference on Monday, Nov. 2.
“I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but when that first poll came out last year, there were several teams that were in that didn’t make it,” Golding said. “There were several teams that made it that weren’t in. … We’re going to take this thing one game at a time, one day at a time, and (we will) go out and look up in December and see where that thing is.”
With six two-loss SEC teams, the conference is still wide open with another onslaught of in-conference matchups this weekend. Next week’s rankings could look dramatically different.
In the first 2025 CFP rankings, Ole Miss was the No. 6 seed. Virginia, Notre Dame, BYU and Memphis were also featured in the first bracket, but did not make the CFP a few weeks later.
The 2026 12-team playoff field will feature the Power Four conference champions, the highest-ranked Group of Six team and seven at-large bids.
The CFP rankings will come out every week for the remainder of the season. The final CFP rankings that determine the playoff field will be revealed on Sunday, Dec. 6.
The playoffs begin with the first round on Dec. 18 and 19. The quarterfinals this year are the Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl and Rose Bowl on Dec. 30 and Jan. 1. The semifinals are the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl, which will be held on Jan. 14-15, just a week and a half before the National Championship on Jan. 25 in Las Vegas.
