⏳ THE COUNTDOWN
18 days to Louisville at Nissan Stadium in Nashville · 31 days to LSU in Oxford (Sept. 19) · Ranked No. 9 in the AP preseason poll · Camp day 13
Good morning, Everydayers. 🦈
The AP poll dropped and Ole Miss is ninth. Every Ole Miss show in America spent yesterday either complaining about that or celebrating it. I did neither — and I said something bigger instead.
👑 NINE IS FAIR — AND THE BIGGER CLAIM UNDERNEATH IT
I’m not playing the disrespect card, because there isn’t one to play.
Ole Miss finished No. 3 in the final AP poll last season after 13-2 and a Playoff semifinal. That’s the résumé. But this team has a head coach who has coached exactly three games at this level, and a brand-new offensive coordinator. Voters split the difference — résumé on one side, real questions on the other — and landed on nine. If I had a ballot and didn’t cover this team every day, I’d have put them right there myself.
And here’s why that matters more than anybody will tell you. Ole Miss has spent its history being one of two things: wildly overhyped in August, or completely ignored. Last season it started 21st and finished 3rd. This is the first time in a very long time — fifties and sixties long time — that Ole Miss is simply ranked where it belongs and almost nobody is arguing about it.
That is what arrival actually looks like. Not being ranked too high. Not screaming about being overlooked. Arrival is when the people who do this for a living weigh your questions honestly and put you exactly where the evidence says, without a fight.
Now the bigger thing. Golding is 2-1 as a head coach, and both of those wins were Playoff wins. He navigated December. He navigated January. He got through spring. And this ranking is one more test he’s passed. At this point he’s earned the benefit of the doubt — which is why I’ll say it out loud: there’s a legitimate chance this program just found its Kirby Smart.
Will it happen? Games get played and we find out. But looking at what he’s actually done, you have to assume the ranking is right and there’s a chance they’re better than we think.
And one distinction that matters: fair isn’t the same as right. Nine is fair for August. Three might be right in December.
🔁 THE SKEPTIC WHO CHANGED HIS MIND
The best evidence that nine is the right spot walked onto the show Sunday.
Brett Ciancia of Pick Six Previews researches all 68 Power 4 teams himself — talking to head coaches and coordinators — and he’s in his 15th season doing it. A year ago I told him Ole Miss was going to be a Playoff team and he didn’t believe me. He said so, on this show, on the record.
He came back and the first thing out of his mouth was that I called it, that he was skeptical, and that this time he’s fully on board.
That’s not somebody being nice to a fanbase. That’s a professional evaluator changing his mind because the evidence moved.
Where he landed: 4th in the SEC. 10th in the country. In his Playoff bracket.
The AP said 9th. Brett said 10th. Two completely separate processes, one spot apart. When independent evaluations converge like that, they’re describing something real. Stack it with ESPN putting Ole Miss in the same tier as Georgia and Ohio State for draft talent, and you have three different methods and three different sets of people landing in the same place.
When everybody who evaluates this for a living independently agrees on you, you’re not being disrespected. You’re being described.
🧩 THE ONE UNIT RANK THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
Brett grades every position group against the conference and against the country. Here’s the board:
- Quarterback — 1st in the SEC and 1st in the entire country. Not top five. First.
- Running back — 2nd in the league, 2nd nationally.
- Linebacker — 2nd in the league, 5th nationally, with Suntarine Perkins as a hybrid poised for an All-American final season.
- Offensive line — 4th in the conference.
- Defensive line — 5th in the league, 11th nationally, with Will Echoles back after leading all Power 4 defensive tackles with 39 quarterback pressures.
- Receivers and tight ends — 5th and 14th.
- Defensive backs — 7th in the SEC.
Seventh. That’s the only unit on this roster outside the top five of its own league — and it’s exactly what the ESPN draft list showed us. They might be draftable, but they’re not quite there. A dramatic improvement over the group Ole Miss had a year ago, and still the softest spot on the team. Which is why it matters that this secondary can function on its own without needing the front seven to protect it.
Brett said the same thing from the other direction: you might not have the No. 1 unit at every position, but as groups he has the linebacker room top five nationally and the defensive line top 15 — and he thinks that defense climbs from outside his top 40 last season into the top 25. His reason was the eight four-star transfer defenders Golding signed, which is a big part of why Ole Miss landed the No. 2 overall transfer class in America.
Best quarterback room in America. Second-best running back room. Top-five linebackers. And one unit ranked seventh in its own conference. That’s a top-ten team. That’s not a top-three team. That’s nine.
His conclusion: Ole Miss is a Playoff at-large pick. Not a long shot. Not a dark horse. Not a nice story.
🚨 THE ONLY RANKED GAME IN WEEK 1
Ole Miss and Louisville is the only ranked-vs-ranked matchup in the entire first week of the season — confirmed, and it’s the Music City Kickoff at Nissan Stadium.
Louisville is 24th in the AP poll and better than that. Brett has them 19th overall, 2nd in the ACC, and picks them to play Miami in the conference title game. This is not a warm-up. That’s a top-20 team coming to Nashville in 18 days.
And here’s the detail that stopped me cold. Last season Louisville beat the No. 2 team in America, Miami, 24-21 — by intercepting Carson Beck four times.
Yes. That Carson Beck. The quarterback who scrambled into the end zone with 18 seconds left and ended the Ole Miss season. Louisville’s secondary did to him what Ole Miss couldn’t in the Fiesta Bowl. Four times.
That defense isn’t a fluke either. Louisville finished top 40 nationally in all 17 of Pick Six’s defensive categories — only Oregon also managed it. Their conference unit ranks are 2nd at defensive line, 2nd at linebacker, 2nd in the secondary. Clev Lubin and AJ Green combined for 12.5 sacks and both are back.
Where I think it actually gets decided: everybody will talk about Isaac Brown — Freshman All-American in 2024, 8.6 yards a carry last season with five 100-yard games in his first eight before getting hurt, and Louisville had the No. 7 rushing attack by opponent-adjusted numbers against an Ole Miss defense that gave up 4.2 a carry. That matchup is real. But the one I’m watching is Louisville’s ends — the strength of their whole team — against the two least experienced spots on the Ole Miss offensive line.
The flip side, and it’s why I still like Ole Miss: Louisville starts Lincoln Kienholz, an Ohio State transfer who has never started a game at the Power 4 level. Brohm has ridden three transfer quarterbacks to three nine-win seasons, so I’m not dismissing him — but quarterback is the one unit Brett doesn’t rank in the ACC’s top three.
And the number that frames it: 21.8 seconds per play for Ole Miss, the fastest in college football. Louisville, 27.3. Five and a half seconds every snap.
One more thing from Brett, because it frames the whole season: he has the SEC getting exactly four Playoff spots with half the league contending. Eight teams for four seats. In that math, a Week 1 loss to a top-20 Louisville team isn’t a bad start — it’s a seat somebody else takes.
And there’s a former Rebel on that sideline. TJ Banks transferred to Louisville in the offseason.
🔗 FIVE LINKS FOR YOUR TUESDAY
- The full AP Top 25. The whole board if you want to see who’s ahead of Ole Miss and by how much. Ohio State 1, Oregon 2, Georgia 3, Notre Dame 4, Texas 5. 👉 See it
- NCAA.com confirms the Week 1 thing I said. Their Week 1 preview singles out No. 9 Ole Miss vs. No. 24 Louisville as the ranked matchup to watch — LSU-Clemson doesn’t count, because Clemson finished outside the poll with 112 votes. 👉 Read it
- Chambliss AND Lacy on the Walter Camp watch list. Ole Miss is one of only nine programs with multiple players on the 50-man Player of the Year list. 👉 Read it
- On3’s breakdown of the whole poll. Useful for the SEC picture — and worth noting Austin Simmons shows up at No. 25 Missouri. 👉 Read it
- And here’s a dissent, because you should read one. College Football News argues ninth is generous — that talent-wise and coaching-wise, Ole Miss is “closer to the 20-25 range than a sure-thing top ten squad.” I don’t agree. But that’s the actual counterargument, stated plainly, and it’s worth knowing what it sounds like. 👉 Read it
🚨 THE OLE MISS HUB LAUNCHES IN A COUPLE OF DAYS
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Eighteen days. Screenshot the nine and pull it back out in December.
Hotty Toddy. 🦈
— Steven Willis, Locked On Ole Miss