OXFORD, Miss — Ole Miss is headed into a second successive rematch in the College Football Playoff.
Making it a second successful rematch will require the Rebels taking down the only team to beat them this season.
In the opening round of the 12-team bracket, No. 6 Ole Miss (12-1) was a 41-10 winner Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium against 17th-ranked, 11th-seeded Tulane (11-3), the American Conference champion and one of two Group of Five teams that received a spot in this year’s playoff. The Rebels, who were one of four Southeastern Conference teams to make the CFP field, nearly matched their 45-10 regular-season triumph over the Green Wave in the fourth week of the regular season, with that matchup also in Oxford.
Next up for the Rebels is a clash with second-ranked third-seeded Georgia (12-1), the two-time reigning SEC champions, in the Sugar Bowl quarterfinal on Jan. 1 at the Superdome in New Orleans. ESPN will televise the matchup at 8 p.m. Eastern.
The Bulldogs defeated visiting Ole Miss in a 43-35 shootout on Oct. 18 in Athens, rallying from a nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter at Sanford Stadium.
“We’re looking forward to playing them again,” said Ole Miss wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling, who had his team-high sixth touchdown catch of the season in the CFP opener. “Georgia is impressive. But there were things in that game that we could have done better.”
The Rebels have been through extensive changes since that game, topped by Pete Golding being promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach two days after an Egg Bowl rivalry win at Mississippi State to close the regular season. Golding, who was in his third season on staff, got the bump hours after Lane Kiffin departed for SEC border rival LSU on Nov. 30, bringing his sixth season in Oxford to a sudden conclusion when Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter turned down his request to continue coaching the Rebels during the postseason while already on the job in Baton Rouge.
“I sleep fine,” Golding deadpanned Saturday when asked about the exhausting schedule he has kept since taking over. “I feel amazing.”
Ole Miss made a seamless transition in Golding’s head coaching debut in the lopsided home win over Tulane. The Rebels will be hoping for a carryover effect in the Sugar Bowl while playing at a neutral site with historical ties for both programs.
“I know how much it means to be playing in New Orleans,” Golding — who grew up not far from the Big Easy in Hammond, Louisiana — said Saturday. “We will enjoy this one tonight, and tomorrow we start preparing for Georgia.”
While the Bulldogs began the season as one of the favorites for a CFP berth, the emergence of the Rebels was less predictable.
Early uncertainty regarding their prospects stemmed from the fact they had to replace 20 starters — and then move transfer quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who came from the NCAA Division II ranks, to the starting role after Austin Simmons got hurt in the second game.
“We never doubted that we were a playoff team when the summer practice started,” Chambliss said. “There were doubters that thought we would be a mid-tier SEC team, maybe. We knew we were a playoff team.”
Georgia and Ole Miss will join Alabama and LSU as the only teams to appear at least 10 times in the Sugar Bowl, but this one will be the first in 60 years featuring two SEC squads.
That 1964 game also featured Ole Miss. The Rebels’ opponent was Alabama, with a 12-7 win in the old Tulane Stadium during snowy weather, a rarity for New Orleans on the Gulf Coast.
Postseason history aside, current Ole Miss players and coaches were quick to dismiss words and phrases such as revenge or payback when talking about Georgia in the postgame news conference Saturday. Instead, the theme focused on opportunity and respect.
In the regular-season contest, the Bulldogs and Rebels combined for 10 touchdowns and more than 850 yards of total offense. The Rebels scored touchdowns on five consecutive possessions while Georgia never faced a punting situation — a fact not lost on Ole Miss defenders such as tackle Will Echoles.
“We’ve talked about that, and we talked about it again tonight after the game. I mean, we’ve got to do everything better,” Echoles said. “That was a bad game for our defense — a really bad game. Period. We know we will have to play our best game.”
TJ Dottery, the leading tackler for the Rebels, added: “Physicality. That’s what Georgia brings. But that’s what I look forward to, is the physicality of the game.”
Just like Golding, Georgia 10th-year head coach Kirby Smart is a former Alabama defensive coordinator whose Tuscaloosa time was spent on the staff of Nick Saban, who retired in January 2024 after leading the Crimson Tide to six national championships in 17 seasons.
Perhaps that will lead this Georgia-Ole Miss showdown to trending away from the shootout variety, but however the game unfolds, Rebels defensive coordinator Bryan Brown has confidence in his team’s new leader.
“He controls the room. He controls the narrative in anything that he wants to control,” Brown said of Golding. “The guys believe in him just like they do defensively, and you can see it turning over to our full team. He just is a great human being, great coach, great motivator … and is going to be a heck of a coach for a long, long time.”