Rebels

The football side of the University of Mississippi grew out of the same campus, in Oxford, that gave the school its student paper's chosen name for the team: Rebels. Play began in 1893, and for most of the twentieth century the program built its case for national attention on the field rather than off it, culminating in three national championships recognized by major selectors across 1959, 1960 and 1962 — a run bracketed by six SEC titles won between 1947 and 1963. Since then the conference crown has come only once more, a division title in 2003.

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, known simply as "The Vaught," holds 64,038. Eli Manning, who won two Super Bowl MVP awards after leaving Oxford, remains the name most associated with the school.

No fixture on the schedule carries more weight than the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. The Sugar Bowl has been a recurring stage for Ole Miss teams, with wins there stretching from 1958 into 2015, and the program reached the College Football Playoff first round in 2025.