Rece Davis proclaimed it out loudly on Tuesday afternoon during his appearance on The Pat McAfee Show.
The longtime ESPN college football host of College GameDay believes that Ole Miss is the No. 1 team in the country.
Yes, the Rebels’ big victory last Saturday night over Lane Kiffin and LSU nudged them up to No. 4 in the new AP Poll. But Davis thinks that Ole Miss should be higher than that, as in he thinks that the Rebels are the best team out there right now, going into another SEC showdown in Week 4 at No. 21 Florida (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
It’ll be a battle of 3-0 teams in The Swamp, both of whom won their SEC openers last week. Ole Miss will be trying to prove Davis right in Gainesville while grabbing yet another impressive victory in 2026 to go with that season-opening wild win over Louisville in Nashville and, of course, the conquest of Kiffin in Oxford.
“We get to a point where you have to give credit for accomplishment. And Ole Miss is one of the few teams in the country, they had the big one against LSU and man I really like what I’ve seen from Louisville, and they beat them, too,” Davis said. “Nobody else has 2 of those (wins), you put that together with the best player (Trinidad Chambliss), and that’s why I ranked Ole Miss No. 1 this week.”
No matter who Davis believes is the No. 1 team right now, in late September, there are a bunch of teams gunning for that national championship trophy in late January, when being No. 1 will matter the most. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about which teams have the best shot to be the last 1 standing with the national title trophy:
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.
