Ole Miss did not just beat a ranked Missouri team on Saturday — the Rebels buried the Tigers 31-3, out-rushed them 257 to 39, and did it on a day the quarterback admitted he was off. Monday’s Flagship broke down the three things that mattered most from that win, made the case that this team is positioned to win everything, and opened up Texas week with the Rebels headed to Austin. Here’s what we got into.
The defense just changed the math
Missouri came into Oxford ranked 13th in the country, averaging 35.8 points a game and built on running the football. It left with one field goal and 39 rushing yards on the day — 1.5 yards a carry, a season low — after Pete Golding’s defense took the run away on early downs. The three points were just the second time in a decade Ole Miss has held an SEC opponent to three or fewer, and it’s part of a bigger turn: after giving up 52 at Florida, the Rebels have allowed 20 points total across their last two SEC games. Landon Barnes got his first career interception in the red zone late, Will Echoles added a sack and two pass breakups, and Luke Ferrelli posted a career-best 1.5 tackles for loss and a sack.
The takeaway is simple: “If this Ole Miss defense plays like that every single week, this Rebels team is not going to lose another game.” There’s no defense in the country good enough to shut down Trinidad Chambliss, so if this one keeps shutting down the other guy, nobody on the schedule — Texas, Auburn, Georgia, Oklahoma — can score enough to win.
Two 100-yard backs and a run game finding its gear
Kewan Lacy carried it 16 times for 122 yards, his first 100-yard game since the playoff semifinal against Miami. Makhi Frazier added 15 carries for 101, a career high. That’s the first time two Rebels have each gone over 100 in the same game since the Arkansas game in 2022. Why it matters: Missouri came in allowing just 78 rushing yards a game and 2.4 yards a carry, and Ole Miss ran for 257 at 6.7 a pop against maybe the best run defense the Rebels will see all year. They also went 5-for-5 in the red zone. The run game isn’t a bonus anymore — it’s the identity.
A 28-point win on Chambliss’s off day
Here’s the part that should scare the rest of the league. Ole Miss won by 28 in a game where Trinidad Chambliss was not sharp — 20 of 36 through the air from a quarterback who came in completing 70% of his passes. He owned it: the accuracy just wasn’t there on some throws. And he still threw three touchdown passes and ran for a fourth. That’s now a touchdown pass in 19 straight games, tying Matt Corral for second in school history behind only Chad Kelly’s 22, and Chambliss moved into the top ten in career passing yards. Caleb Odom, Horatio Fields and Caleb Cunningham each caught a touchdown, Cunningham’s first of his career.
Last year, Ole Miss needed Chambliss to be great to win. On Saturday, the defense and the run game won it, and his off day was still a 28-point blowout. If that’s what a B-plus performance looks like on both sides of the ball, the ceiling on this team hasn’t been touched yet.
Would it surprise anybody if Ole Miss won it all?
After the weekend, no. Chaos hit the top of the sport on Saturday, and there’s no unbeaten team left in the SEC. Ole Miss sits at 5-1, 3-1 in the league, with the head-to-head games it needs still on the schedule: at Texas this week, then Auburn and Georgia both at home. A year ago this program won a playoff game at home and beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, so this isn’t a team learning how to win in November.
The honest part: winning everything still means winning at night in Austin as an underdog, cleaning up a road resume that’s been uneven, and solving a third quarter that went scoreless on Saturday even as the defense held. Nobody out there looks dominant, though. The best team in December is going to be whoever is playing its best football — and right now, nobody is improving at a better time than Ole Miss.
What the Texas line is telling us
According to FanDuel’s numbers as of Sunday morning, Texas opened as a 3.5-point favorite over Ole Miss with the total at 55.5 and the Rebels at +126 on the moneyline. Read it for what it is: the market sees Ole Miss as good, not great — a road team it trusts about as far as a coin flip. The total being that low for two offenses like this says the market expects a game decided by defense, which is exactly the version of Ole Miss we just watched. A week ago the Rebels were favored by six and a half over Missouri and won by 28, so these numbers aren’t gospel. Saturday in Austin is the swing game, and we’ll be on it every single day this week.
Also on the show: John Fourcade
Ole Miss legend John Fourcade — the quarterback Chambliss just passed on the career passing list — joined up to dig into whether this offense is actually better than the numbers suggest. His answer leaned yes: under coordinator John David Baker, the Rebels look cleaner in situational football, they’re going for the jugular downfield earlier, and the red-zone execution (5-for-5 Saturday) is the tell. But like everyone else, Fourcade kept coming back to the other side of the ball: “My hat goes off to everybody on that defensive unit.” The front was fantastic, Echoles is a problem, and if that group travels to Austin, he likes the Rebels’ chances.
Hotty Toddy.
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