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Ole Miss

Where is Ole Miss in the first way-too-early spring bowl projections for the 2023 season?

11by: Jake Thompson05/15/23JakeThompsonOn3
Mississippi State v Ole Miss
Ole Miss football head caoch Lane Kiffin (Photo by Justin Ford/Getty Images)

Spring practices wrapped up a month ago for Ole Miss and all of college football was finished with spring practices and games.

It is only the middle of May and the regular season is still a little less than four months away but that does not stop the machine that is college football prognostication and predictions, including bowl games that are still seven months away.

An entire regular season has yet to be played but on Monday the first batch of the way-too-early bowl game projections rolled out. Brett McMurphy of the Action Network and College Football News took their shots at laying out which teams will be playing where come December and the College Football Playoff time.

Ole Miss found itself in both projections and looking primed for a fourth straight postseason appearance under head coach Lane Kiffin.

Again, these are projections made in May but it is fun to still talk about it as the summer doldrums are coming.

McMurphy has Ole Miss heading to Charlotte and the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, taking on ACC opponent Pittsburgh. The Rebels are 20-point favorites in McMurphy’s projection as well.

The last time the Rebels took on Pittsburgh was the 2013 Birmingham Bowl where the defeated the Panthers.

Ole Miss keeps with the ACC opponent theme in College Football News’ projection, released on May 2. The Rebels are projected to head back to Florida for a second time under Kiffin, playing Clemson in the Taxslayer Gator Bowl.

The last time Ole Miss played in Florida was in Kiffin’s first season when the Rebels earned a berth to the Outback Bowl in 2021, beating then No. 7 Indiana.

Ole Miss is considered the 16th best team in ESPN’s latest FPI rankings and one of the top SEC teams for 2023.

The FPI also has Ole Miss favored in nine games this season and a win-loss average window of 7.6-4.4, putting the Rebels in the same area it finished last season (8-4).

Ole Miss dropped four of its last five games and limped into the Texas Bowl where Texas Tech beat them to make it a four-game losing streak to end the season.

After opening 2022 with all four non-conference opponents Ole Miss mixes things up with its 2023 schedule. After three straight non-conference games against Mercer, at Tulane and home against Georgia Tech the Rebels open up SEC play on Sept. 23 against Alabama, setting off a run of seven straight conference games in eight weeks.

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