Ole Miss seeks revenge vs. Kentucky in SEC opener: 2 best bets & predictions

Ole Miss will head up to Lexington this week for the first SEC football game of the 2025 season.

This is an important game for the Rebels on a few different levels. For one, it’s a must-win if they want to get to the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history. It’s also an opportunity to avenge its home loss to these Wildcats from last season.

Ole Miss vs. Kentucky betting preview

Here’s what bettors should know before Ole Miss vs. Kentucky begins:

Ole Miss fact sheet

• Ole Miss lost Jaxson Dart to the NFL Draft this offseason and replaced him with Austin Simmons — a 6-4 lefty who served as the Rebels’ backup last season. Simmons helped Ole Miss beat Georgia last season by leading a scoring drive while Dart was being evaluated for an injury. He’s averaged 9.9 yards per attempt in his career, but did throw 2 interceptions last weekend against Georgia State.
• Simmons had 3 turnover-worthy passes against Georgia State in Week 1, according to Pro Football Focus. He didn’t throw any picks last season in 32 attempts. 
• The Ole Miss wide receiver room is led by Cayden Lee, who is back for his third season in Oxford. He amassed over 850 yards last season but caught just 2 passes in Ole Miss’s season opener. Harrison Wallace, a transfer from Penn State, is another name to know. He had a team-high 9 targets against Georgia State. 
• Kewan Lacy had a great debut as Ole Miss’s starting running back. He went for 108 yards and 3 touchdowns and was clocked as one of the fastest players in the country in Week 1. 
• Defensively, Ole Miss lost a ton of talent to the NFL Draft. A ton. Five defensive players got picked, including 2 defensive tackles. 
• Even after accounting for more than a dozen defensive transfers, Ole Miss ranks 83rd in defensive returning production according to ESPN. 

Kentucky fact sheet

• Kentucky coach Mark Stoops enters the 2025 season with arguably more job security questions than he’s ever had in Lexington. Since its 10-win season in 2021, Kentucky has gone 7-17 in SEC play over the last 3 years. 
• However, one of those conference victories came against Ole Miss last season in Oxford. Thanks to a bold call on fourth down late in the game, Kentucky was able to hand the Rebels their first loss of the 2024 season. 
• UK has a new quarterback this year in Zach Calzada, who spent the last couple of years at Incarnate Word. He has SEC experience from his time at Texas A&M. Calzada was not good in Kentucky’s opener against Toledo — he threw for just 85 yards on 23 attempts and had an interception. UK was 116th in passing success rate in Week 1, per Game on Paper. 
• Kentucky’s running back room is led by transfers Dante Dowdell and Seth McGowan. Dowdell was excellent in his program debut and is the only SEC player to rip off a 70+ yard run so far this season. 
• Defensively, Kentucky was 12th in yards per play allowed vs. SEC competition last season (5.99 yards per play). 
• The strength of Kentucky’s team is arguably its defensive line, which added several 4-star transfers (per 247Sports) this offseason. That showed up in Week 1 as Kentucky held Toledo to a 23% rushing success rate, per Game on Paper. Ole Miss also recorded an impressive 14 pressures, per PFF. 

Ole Miss vs. Kentucky best bets

This is a big revenge spot for Ole Miss after Kentucky won in Oxford a year ago. I think there’s a chance Kentucky’s season is dead on arrival — Calzada put up truly awful numbers in Week 1 against a good-but-not-great MAC defense. I may have some questions about Ole Miss’s defense being Playoff-quality, but I certainly think the Rebels are more talented than Toledo. I’d be pretty surprised if Kentucky managed more than a couple of touchdowns on Saturday, especially with Stoops’ tendency to take field goals in the red zone rather than go for it on fourth down. Last year UK had 15 fourth-down opportunities in the red zone and kicked a field goal 9 times. 

Pick: Kentucky under 2.5 touchdowns (-115 on Caesars)

Ole Miss is typically one of the fastest and most efficient teams in the country under Lane Kiffin, but the Rebels have tended to take a different approach in the fourth quarter when they’re protecting a lead. Last year in 7 SEC games that Ole Miss led after 3 quarters, it only outscored its opponents 25-21 in the final stanza on average. It was a similar story in 2023 — Ole Miss outscored SEC opponents 38-28 across 5 games in the fourth quarter when it had a lead. I’m certainly expecting Ole Miss to have a lead on Saturday heading into the fourth quarter, so I’ll gladly take the pre-flop under. 

Pick: Under 13.5 total points in the fourth quarter (-110 on DraftKings)

Spenser Davis

Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.