Ole Miss Rebels 2026 Season Preview

Chambliss is the best story in college football and, on our board, the top returning quarterback in the country. A zero-star recruit who began at Division II Ferris State, where he won a national title, he opened 2025 backing up Austin Simmons before an early-September injury handed him the job. He never gave it back. Chambliss finished eighth in Heisman voting and ranked 10th nationally in total offense at 297.6 yards per game, throwing for 3,937 yards with a 22-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio while adding 527 rushing yards. His signature came against Georgia in the playoff, when he threw for 362 yards and two scores. He is a winner with rare presence and feel, and the framing here is a Heisman candidate playing behind a program that expects to compete for a championship.

The one glaring rebuild is at receiver, where Ole Miss must replace more than 3,000 yards of production lost to the NFL and the portal, including De'Zhaun Stribling, Harrison Wallace III and Dae'Quan Wright. Cayden Lee, a productive slot option, transferred to Missouri, thinning the room further. Deuce Alexander is the anchor after a 684-yard, 15.5-per-catch season, and the staff again leaned on the portal to reload, headlined by a Syracuse duo in Johntay Cook II, who caught 549 yards worth of passes last fall, and Darrell Gill Jr. At tight end, Arkansas transfer Luke Hasz brings 577 receiving yards over two seasons, while 6-5 Auburn transfer Caleb Odom projects as a matchup nightmare and the group's X-factor. The talent is there; the timing of the chemistry is the question.

Lacy gives Ole Miss one of the nation's premier backfields to pair with Chambliss. He ran for 1,567 yards last season, tying the single-season program record set by Quinshon Judkins, and scored a school-record 24 rushing touchdowns at 5.1 per carry en route to first-team All-America honors. He has a rare ability to make defenders miss and is seldom knocked backward, and if he duplicates that output he becomes the leading rusher in Ole Miss history. Michigan State transfer Makhi Frazier, who ran for 520 yards a year ago, adds real depth behind him, giving Golding a group he can lean on when he wants to control tempo.

The front is a mixed bag. Both starting tackles, Diego Pounds and Jayden Williams, are gone and must be replaced, which likely means a bump in sacks early. The interior, though, is a strength: three starters return, led by veteran guard Patrick Kutas, who has stacked starts at Arkansas and Ole Miss, center Brycen Sanders, who started all 15 games, and guard Delano Townsend, a UAB transfer with SEC-caliber snaps. LSU transfer Carius Curne, regarded as one of the top tackles in the portal, arrives to help settle the edges. Overall the group is more experienced than the raw personnel losses suggest.

The front is the backbone of Golding's defense, built around two homegrown juniors. Echoles, a Mississippi native and the Sugar Bowl defensive MVP, blossomed into one of the SEC's best interior linemen in his first year as a starter, finishing with 11.5 tackles for loss and five sacks. Franklin complements him off the edge with nine tackles for loss and five sacks of his own; together the pair combined for 20.5 stops behind the line. Both bring genuine draft stock, and the fact that they chose to return is a major reason expectations soared. The unit did lose leading pass rusher Princewill Umanmielen, who followed Kiffin to LSU, but Alabama transfer Jehiem Oatis adds 325-pound size inside, and portal edge additions Jordan Renaud and Blake Purchase are expected to ease the pass-rush loss. Coordinator Bryan Brown calls this his deepest and most talented line.

Versatile Suntarine Perkins headlines the second level and is one of the most productive defenders in the country, with 179 tackles, 32 tackles for loss and 18.5 sacks across his career, including 81 stops, 4.5 sacks and eight tackles for loss a year ago. He is a disruptive, dual-threat piece who can rush off the edge or drop, and he anchors the entire front seven. He gets reinforcements in former ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year Luke Ferrelli, a Cal transfer who logged 91 tackles, and Baylor's Keaton Thomas, a two-time all-conference pick who racked up more than 200 tackles over the past two seasons. It is the deepest linebacker corps the staff has assembled in years.

The secondary was retooled through the portal but should be a strength. Cornerback Antonio Kite is a smart, instinctive cover man who broke up five passes and could hear his name called early in the draft. He pairs with junior Jaylon Braxton to form a potential premier tandem on the outside. The safety spots drew a heavy influx of newcomers, including Florida transfer Sharif Denson, who posted 90 tackles over two seasons, Florida State transfer Edwin Joseph, and Georgia transfer Joenel Aguero, a physical run defender with 65 tackles the past two years. All are expected to play significant roles as the back end tries to lift the defense a notch.

Ole Miss is loaded in the kicking game. Placekicker Lucas Carneiro, a Western Kentucky transfer and first-team All-American, led the nation with 31 field goals on 35 attempts for an 88.6 percent clip, went 5-of-7 from 50 and beyond, drilled three 50-plus-yarders against Georgia and the game-winning 47-yarder in the Sugar Bowl, and connected from 58 against Miami. Aussie punter Oscar Bird averaged 46.0 yards with 14 punts pinned inside the 20 and a 43.6 net that ranked third nationally. It rates among the best special-teams units in the country.