Ole Miss football is replacing over 70 percent of its starting lineup in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
However, the Rebels are still receiving the ninth-best odds nationally to reach the College Football Playoff<\/a>. They also have the eighth-best odds to win the national championship (+2500).<\/p>\n Ole Miss was a preseason darling last season and won 10 games for the third time in four years. The Rebels fell short of the playoff, though, following losses to Kentucky and Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure they\u2019re falling off,\u201d On3 national analyst Andy Staples said Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cIf we look at their transfer portal class, Ole Miss got a lot of the dudes that a lot of people wanted in the portal.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLuke Hasz, the tight end from Arkansas, was one we thought would be a difference-maker. They got De\u2019Zhaun Stribling, who was Oklahoma State\u2019s best receiver last year [and] Kewan Lacy, the running back from Missouri. They got Princely\u2019s brother, Princewill (Umanmielen), who came from Nebraska.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve assumed Ole Miss drops off here. I don\u2019t know if we should assume that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Ole Miss signed the nation\u2019s No. 3 transfer class, according to On3.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stribling is ranked Top 5 among returning SEC wide receivers by Pro Football Focus, which also has Hasz as one of 10 tight ends to watch for the 2026 NFL Draft. Lacy is a former 4-star recruit.<\/p>\n Troy transfer running back Damien Taylor has the fourth-highest PFF grade of all SEC running backs (83.0)<\/a>. He was one of eight transfers the Rebels added after spring practices. Ole Miss also brought in a pair of quarterbacks, Trinidad Chambliss and Maealiluaki Smith, to compete with first-year starting quarterback Austin Simmons..<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one we may be underestimating this year,\u201d Staples continued. \u201cYou see Ole Miss hanging around in the Top 20 with a lot of the preseason polls. I don\u2019t think anybody really knows what they\u2019re going to be. Can they continue to be good while having this much turnover in the portal or will they have a year like 2024 Florida State at some point down the road?\u201d<\/p>\n The ESPN FPI gives Ole Miss 30.7 percent odds to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n Ole Miss isn\u2019t lacking for returning star power<\/a>, despite all the new. A pair of juniors will lead both sides of the ball.\u00a0Cayden Lee is one of the SEC\u2019s most productive returning wide receivers<\/a>. Suntarine Perkins made his star turn last season as an All-American.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n On3\u2019s Ari Wasserman has Perkins as a way-too-early All-American for next season.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have a really good quarterback,\u201d Wasserman said. \u201cI also think if they thought [Simmons] wasn\u2019t a really good quarterback they would have behaved differently in the portal. I think they have a much higher floor than Florida State last year, but it probably looks to me like a 9-3-ish type team, which is weird.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think [making the playoff] would be a nice little redemption for Lane Kiffin. He\u2019s a really good coach. They blew it last year. That team we saw when they hosted Georgia could have won the national title. If they were to get to it this year, that would make for a nice redemption arc. Lane Kiffin could hold his head high. I don\u2019t know if I buy that\u2019ll happen. There\u2019s too many good teams in the SEC this year to get that far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ole Miss football is replacing over 70 percent of its starting lineup in 2025-26. However, the Rebels are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5975,35302,30874,7,35303,5987,35304,49,48,5357,7207,25561,899,1788],"class_list":{"0":"post-155526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-austin-simmons-23-moore-haven-junior-senior","9":"tag-damien-taylor","10":"tag-dezhaun-stribling-21-kapolei","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-kewan-lacy-24-lancaster","13":"tag-lane-kiffin-94-jefferson","14":"tag-luke-hasz-23-bixby","15":"tag-ncaa","16":"tag-ncaa-football","17":"tag-ole-miss-football","18":"tag-ole-miss-rebels","19":"tag-ole-miss-rebels-football","20":"tag-ole-miss","21":"tag-regwall"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114740044037276394","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}