Pat McAfee is pushing his cards to the center of the table for Ole Miss this fall.
The ESPN talk show host and college football analyst said so out loud on Saturday morning during College GameDay. The Rebels are once again a ranked team, coming in at No. 20 this week, and once again Lane Kiffin has his program in position to make a run at a College Football Playoff spot.
It was a fun couple of seasons under Kiffin and with Jaxson Dart slinging the football, as Ole Miss posted back-to-back double-digit win seasons in 2023 and 2024, going a combined 21-5 with Kiffin on the sideline and Dart at the helm of the offense. But both times, it all wasn’t quite good enough to get the Rebels into their first ever spot in the Playoff.
Kiffin is 45-18 in Oxford, but Ole Miss fans want more. They want a Playoff spot. And now they have a new quarterback in Austin Simmons in which to place their hopes behind. McAfee believes those hopes and dreams might finally be realized this fall.
Saturday’s game at Kentucky will be a telling early sign for Ole Miss, which lost at home to the Wildcats early last season in a devastating defeat that contributed to a disappointing season. McAfee thinks it all might be different at long last for Ole Miss, which kicks things off with Kentucky on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
“We thought it was the year (last year) and Kentucky kind of ruined it for them. I think Lane is going to pull a lot from that … I don’t think Lane’s going to let last year’s mistakes bury them this year. I’m very excited about this Ole Miss team this year. I know they lose Jaxson Dart, but I love (this team). Lots of transfer portal guys, but it feels like they got the right ones down there,” explained McAfee.
McAfee posted this on his social media account from his analysis of Ole Miss on Saturday morning:
Will McAfee be right about this Ole Miss team? Will this finally be the Rebels’ year? We’ll know by December, or maybe we’ll know a lot more by the end of Saturday, if last year was any indication.
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.
