Ole Miss hosts Auburn on Saturday at 5-2, with five games left including Georgia and a road trip to Oklahoma. The Rebels are 38-3 at home since 2021 and have allowed fewer sacks than any team in the SEC, sixth-fewest nationally. They have scored on their opening possession once all season. Both losses came away from Oxford.
Locked On Ole Miss host Steven Willis broke the Texas defeat into three games: a first half the Rebels lost outright, a third quarter and early fourth they controlled, and a closing stretch that got away. The loss no segmentation fixes, Willis said, is Florida, which he called “a big wart.”
Michael Katz, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal’s Ole Miss writer, argued that a three-loss SEC team can still reach the playoff, but only with “the right three losses” and “the right collection of wins.” If Ole Miss beats Georgia and drops one of the others, Katz said, it probably gets in anyway. Texas holds the firmest ground among the two-loss teams, he said, because its wins include Ohio State and Ole Miss.
Saturday turns on which version of the Ole Miss run defense shows up, Katz said, because Auburn’s offense depends on its quarterback’s legs. That quarterback has thrown seven interceptions. On the Texas tape, Katz noted that outside seven carries of 10 or more yards, Texas ran 35 times for 42 yards. Auburn’s line has given up 30 sacks, and he called it poor inside.
The game could start slowly, Katz allowed, as Ole Miss has all year, but he could not see the Rebels winning by fewer than 10 at home. His prediction was 34-20, and he said he cannot see Trinidad Chambliss turning in a third poor outing in a row, with Georgia next in Oxford.
Photo: Caleb Odom, September 6, 2026, at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images.
Adapted from the October 31, 2026 episode of Locked On Ole Miss, hosted by Steven Willis, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Watch the full episode.