As Ole Miss Football inches closer to a College Football Playoff berth, one thing has become increasingly clear: Vaught-Hemingway Stadium could host a playoff game in the near future, and many University of Mississippi students believe this would be an experience like no other.
“I believe having a College Football Playoff game in Oxford would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” freshman elementary education major Ryleigh Sims said. “The game would have a whole different vibe than normal. The energy would be huge, and people would show up and be loud.”
As with all Ole Miss home games, the festivities would begin in the heart of campus and the engine of the tailgate: the Grove.
“The atmosphere of a playoff game would be insane,” freshman pharmaceutical science major Shelby Holt said. “I think lots of people would come, and the Grove would be busier than ever.”
The Grove could easily be filled before morning, lined with tents, chandeliers and thousands of fans in the designated color of the game.
“I would arrive at the Grove four hours early,” Ben Watts, a freshman civil engineering major from Flora, Miss., said. “Depending on who we would end up playing, this could be one of the biggest games ever, and I would want to experience every minute of it.”
Paige Moreau, a junior multidisciplinary studies major from Austin, Texas, plans on travelling back to Oxford for the game, despite being so far from home.
“If a playoff game was held in Oxford over (the semester) break, I would absolutely go,” Moreau said. “I would be traveling from my hometown which is about 11 hours away.”
Inside the stadium, the experience would only intensify. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium might be on the smaller side of college stadiums with a capacity of 64,038, but that is part of what makes it unique.
Last week against Florida, fans were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, raising their voices to amp up the pressure on Gator third downs. There were 68,138 fans in the Vaught — the largest attendance in the stadium’s history. At the end of the game, chants of “belt to a–” swept through the student section as students swung and snapped their belts.
The flashy additions of the pregame light show and the mid-game drone show also kept the crowd engaged. Those kinds of productions are allowed at home playoff games; however, video board content will be controlled by the NCAA, with the exception of introduction videos.
According to the NCAA, host teams must adhere to all NCAA policies regarding signage, advertising and promotions before and during the game. The NCAA also provides a run-of-show and script of all in-game events and announcements.
Still, the Florida game showed what the Ole Miss fans and the athletics department are capable of.
The Rebel faithful showed up for the Florida game, and head coach Lane Kiffin believes he knows why.
“Like I’ve always said, I wish our fans would be the way they are at LSU games because they hate LSU,” Kiffin said in his postgame press conference on Saturday, Nov. 15. “So, I guess we got them to hate Florida this week. So, they came with a little different, not ‘Mississippi nice’ like they do sometimes.”
While Ole Miss fans may not necessarily hate whoever their team is paired against in the playoffs, they appear to be ready to head back to campus for the game.
While the details of the playoff game at Ole Miss remain hypothetical, the anticipation among students and fans reflects how excited the community is. Thousands are ready for a moment when football playoffs reach Oxford — a moment that would mark a new chapter in the university’s history.
