Ole Miss announces program-record attendance for CFP game vs. Tulane
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Ole Miss just needed to score more points than Tulane on Saturday afternoon in Oxford, because the final score was the bottom line for the Rebels in their pursuit of a quarterfinal spot in the College Football Playoff.
But the No. 6 seed had a feather in its cap against the 11th-seeded Green Wave, and that was all about its home fans, who had waited forever for a big stage like this on national TV as their beloved team chased a national title. So, the Ole Miss fans were a big part of what Saturday meant, and as it turned out those fans showed out like no other Rebel football crowd ever had.
As Ole Miss took a big lead at the end of the 3rd quarter, it was announced that the program set an attendance record at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday. Yes, an all-time Rebels record of 68,251 fanatics showed up to see Ole Miss’s first-ever Playoff game in what was also the team’s first game after the departure of head coach Lane Kiffin to LSU.
The Rebels were giving that special group of record-breaking fans a treat on Saturday by taking the lead really early and cruising through the first 3 quarters.
Of course, assuming Ole Miss finished off Tulane later in the day, Saturday’s game would be the last 1 in Oxford for the 2025 season.
The remainder of whatever was left of the Rebels’ Playoff run would be played on neutral fields, and that was fine with the fans, who all just came to see their team advance past the first round and keep those national title hopes alive.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
