Ole Miss has plenty of buzz around it for 2024, closing out 2023 as a Top 10 team
Everyone and every generation has those trends that become pop culture mainstays whether it be fashion that must-have toy or a band that ends up becoming timeless Hall of Famers.
In sports it is more of a flash-in-the-pan type of trend but rest assured the Ole Miss football program is here for the long haul.
Closing out 2023 in historic fashion with a Peach Bowl victory and the first 11-win season in program history has the Rebels a national darling, so to speak, heading into 2024. This is also thanks to the success of Lane Kiffin in the transfer portal, once again.
Proof that Ole Miss has ‘arrived,’ at least in the sense of national conversation for the popular topic of who will contend next season in the waking moments after the College Football Playoff’s national title game’s conclusion, is easy to spot.
In the late hours of early Tuesday morning the final Associated Press Top 25 was released and Ole Miss found itself ranked No. 9, up two spots from the poll released ahead of bowl season a month ago.
It is the first Top 10 ranking the Rebels have had in the final AP poll of the season under Kiffin and the first time since the 2015 season after a Sugar Bowl victory over Oklahoma State (finished at No. 10).
“I really do believe we’re just getting started,” Kiffin said in his postgame comments after the Peach Bowl. “I think that we’re doing something, we’re on our way to something really special.
“We’re just getting started on something really special and a run here. I normally say that’s never been done before, but we just did that, but to come back and do it even better and to continue to improve on what we’ve done so far.”
Now that the confetti has fallen and been swept up in Houston, Ole Miss is a buzzworthy name for the way too early talk of 2024.
Kiffin helped the Rebels make history this season and close out inside the Top 10 but the talking heads and prognosticators are even higher on the program’s chances for this fall.
Several outlets have Ole Miss in their way-too-early Top 25s, including On3 that placed them at No. 7 on Monday night. ESPN also had the Rebels slotted at No. 7. CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd is even more bullish on the Rebels, placing them at No. 5 in his early Top 25 rankings.
Dodd also had interesting comments on the departure of Quinshon Judkins, who committed to Ohio State on Monday.
“What was Quinshon Judkins thinking by entering the portal?” Dodd said. “The warm embrace of Oxford, Mississippi, and the Lane Train would have made him a Heisman Trophy contender. Now? Well, good luck with NIL riches, kid. Kiffin has plenty of running back depth even after making Judkins a star.”
Monday also saw Ole Miss shore up its running back depth situation with Ulysses Bentley IV announcing his return for a final season in Oxford this fall.
Polls are fun and a nice window dressing for a program to hype the upcoming year with throughout the offseason but when the experts in Las Vegas start getting high on you it changes things.
On Monday ESPN Bet released its odds for the 2025 National Championship with Ole Miss coming in with the sixth best at 14-1 (+1400). BetOnline also had the Rebels +1400 in their future odds released last week.
The 2023 season ended less than 12 hours ago as of this story’s publication but for the next seven-plus months Ole Miss is going to be that trendy, fun new pick in college football.
