Locked On Ole Miss Hit - Quick Takes on Ole Miss Rebels Football & Basketball
Your daily hit of Ole Miss Rebels Football & Basketball covering news, trade rumors, game reactions, and sharp takes on everything happening with your team, all in five minutes or less. Done before your coffee is. New hits drop throughout the day, every day, all year long. Your Team. Every Day.
The Theory: Golding's Defense Can't Work In The Portal Era
The theory, stated as its own argument: the defense Pete Golding is trying to build at Ole Miss cannot be installed in the transfer portal era, and the Florida loss is what that looks like on a Saturday.
Segment one: Golding runs the Alabama system — match coverage, pattern reading, assignments that change off what two other players do. At Alabama it took three years inside the building before anyone started. Ole Miss opened this season with eight new defensive starters who had one training camp. A defender who is a step late is a defender thinking.
Segment tw...
What We Learned: Ole Miss Ran Out Of Gas, And The Kickoff Unit
Ole Miss did not lose that game because anybody lacked courage. It lost because there were not enough bodies left.
Golding's postgame said his defense was ankle biting instead of going chest to chest, and used the words "a lack of courage." This show does not sign that one.
What goes in its place: nine players ruled out, five of them defensive backs. Kewan Lacy downgraded to doubtful hours before kickoff. Three ranked opponents inside 22 days, the last on the road in Florida heat. And Florida handing it to two backs 41 times for 302 yards.
...
What We Learned: Pete Golding's Answer, And What September Bought
The most important thing that happened Saturday was not on the field. It was the order Pete Golding said things in afterward.
From the postgame transcript: "Tackling the guy with the ball is a real thing on defense... it's kind of important." Then: "That starts at the top. We got to do a better job of coaching them." And then: "I told our players we got to look in the mirror as well, so we're all accountable to it."
He named the problem, put it on the staff, and only then asked the players to carry their...
Ole Miss Ran For Just 63 Yards Against LSU And Won Anyway
Ole Miss ran 25 times for 63 yards against LSU — 2.5 a carry, a number attributed to Josh Pate — while LSU ran 43 times for 172. And Ole Miss won 32-24.
The number that explains it, also Josh Pate's: Ole Miss went 5-for-5 in the red zone for 32 points. Every trip finished. The run game was not how they won; finishing was. That matters with the starting running back listed questionable two days out.
Segment two: three of nine defensive backs returned to this roster this season. The league ruled two Ole Miss cornerbacks out and listed three more defensive backs ques...
The Projections Banked This Ole Miss Win. The Market Did Not
John Talty at CBS Sports has Ole Miss as the No. 4 seed in his playoff projection and Florida nowhere in his top twelve. Matt Hayes at USA TODAY had Ole Miss No. 1 in their playoff predictor. The betting market has Florida favored.
Those are two industries looking at the same game and reaching opposite conclusions — and only one of them loses money when it is wrong. This show does not handicap and does not issue picks; odds are cited as evidence.
Segment two: Florida has 22 penalties for 208 yards in three games, a shade under 70 yards a ga...
A Florida Transfer Just Gave Ole Miss The Jadan Baugh Book
Sharif Denson transferred to Ole Miss from Florida. He grew up a Gator in Jacksonville, both his parents went to UF, and he spent Tuesdays and Wednesdays in practice running against Jadan Baugh. On Tuesday he gave the scouting report out loud.
Denson on Baugh: "He run under his pads. He very strong in the weight room, very strong on the field. He good hands, good pass blocker. He really could do everything... And then obviously he break all the tackles, and his balance is just really good. So you just got to bring your feet, wrap up...
93% Of The Money Is On Ole Miss And Vegas Will Not Budge
Sports Betting Dime, updated Monday afternoon, has the Ole Miss moneyline at 93% of the handle on 39% of the tickets. Fewer than four in ten tickets are on Ole Miss; 93 cents of every dollar is. That figure is secondhand — it is a tracking site, not a sportsbook.
And the number has not moved. Vegas has sat on Florida by three to three and a half all week, consensus Wednesday Florida -3. What did move is the total: 60.5 Monday, 58.5 Wednesday. Two points off the total, nothing off the side.
Then, later: Florida turned Saturday into a television ev...
Ole Miss Won Everything On Monday And It Buys Them Nothing
Monday was the best day this coaching staff has had. Pete Golding was named the Bear Bryant Awards National Coach of the Week. Trinidad Chambliss was named SEC Offensive Player of the Week, the third Ole Miss player to win it this season.
The school's releases carry the rest: Chambliss at 33 completions, 363 yards and three total touchdowns against LSU, leading the SEC at 308.0 passing yards a game and 6th nationally, leading the league in completions per game at 25.7 — off a record 70,033 crowd and a fourth-and-goal stand to seal it.
Then the second argument, and it is...
Jon Sumrall Just Told Ole Miss Exactly How Florida Beats Them
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open and the menu
0:49 The Back Who Compounds
2:16 Kalshi
2:43 The Land Of Misfit Toys
DESCRIPTION
Jon Sumrall's Monday press conference got covered as a compliment tour. The football in it is a plan he said out loud.
SEGMENT ONE: Asked about Pro Football Focus counting 13 broken tackles on 26 carries at Auburn, Sumrall said Jadan Baugh is "the type of runner who gets better with the workload" — the more carries, the better he plays, because his vision gets cleaner as the game go...
Pete Golding Brought Up A Loss Four Days After His Biggest Win
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open and the menu
0:52 The Loss He Brought Up Himself
2:21 Kalshi
2:48 The Ones You Take
DESCRIPTION
Four days after the biggest win of his tenure, Pete Golding stood at his Florida preview press conference and brought up a loss nobody asked him about.
SEGMENT ONE: Asked whether 2024 helps him this week, Golding said his last memory of going to Gainesville was "being number fourteen in the country versus a five and five football team, and getting beat." He added that Flori...
Traylon Ray's Career Night, And The Secondary That Sealed It
Two roster segments from Ole Miss's 32-24 win over No. 7 LSU. First: the receiver question the offseason never stopped asking got answered by a player who was already on the roster.
Traylon Ray caught 7 passes for 115 yards and a touchdown — career highs in both catches and yards, and the first 100-yard receiving game of his career. He said afterward it had been two years since his last touchdown. Five of six pass catchers left Ole Miss in the offseason and the Rebels never replaced them from outside. On Saturday four different receivers cleared 50 yards: Ray 115, Caleb Odom a...
Ole Miss Lands The No. 4 Safety — And The Two Polls Disagree
Two institutional segments on the Monday after Ole Miss beat No. 7 LSU 32-24. First: the recruiting collapse everybody promised after Lane Kiffin left never arrived. On Sunday afternoon Ole Miss landed a commitment from Braylen Bedford, a safety in the 2028 class. Rivals ranks him No. 44 nationally and the No. 4 safety in his class. He's a Mississippi native who plays at Brentwood Academy in Brentwood, Tennessee, and he chose Ole Miss over Tennessee and Kentucky among others. Head coach Pete Golding and safeties coach Wes Neighbors have recruited him for years; Donte Moncrief is on the recruiting staff. He's the third...
Kewan Lacy Already Predicted The Thing That Gets Ole Miss 35
Kewan Lacy said it in Wednesday's official practice report, before anyone was discussing LSU's quarterback: “I feel like we're going to be way more explosive.” That is the running back predicting the one thing this offense has not done yet.
The personnel says he has a case. Trinidad Chambliss is completing 71 percent with five touchdowns and one interception and a 170.36 rating off the school's own stats page, 561 yards in two games with a 62-yard completion on his ledger. Deuce Alexander and Caleb Odom are the targets this staff keeps returning to, and John David Baker's offense works betw...
Nobody Believes Kiffin's Injury Report. The Numbers Say They Should
The Southeastern Conference listed LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt as doubtful on Wednesday evening's initial availability report. Then nothing happened — because nobody believes a Lane Kiffin injury report.
Six predictions published that same day, four of them for LSU. The A to Z Sports panel wrote it into their own copy: there have been reports Leavitt is doubtful, “but there seems to be the belief that he will play.” Pete Fiutak at College Football News named the doubtful listing and still landed LSU 31-26. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported no one on the Ole Miss staff is convinced it is sin...
LSU Had To Manufacture Its Bulletin Board Material This Week
CHAPTERS (from measured word counts):
00:00 LSU Had To Go Find Its Motivation
0:49 An Answer, Not A Taunt
2:12 Kalshi
2:39 Thirteen Catches, Two Thirty-Five
DESCRIPTION:
Deuce Alexander was asked on Tuesday how Ole Miss's receivers stack up against LSU's secondary. He answered it as a matchup question — and one word from the end of that answer reportedly went up on a wall inside LSU's football operations building.
A caution this segment states on air: the wall is reported via a circulating photo, no outlet has named who took it, and n...
Ole Miss Served Umanmielen In LSU's Parking Lot. That's Allowed.
CHAPTERS (from measured word counts):
00:00 Ole Miss Paid The Bills
0:50 Five Hundred Fifty Thousand
2:13 Kalshi
2:40 There Is No Neutral Referee
DESCRIPTION:
LSU defensive end Princewill Umanmielen was served in the parking lot outside LSU's football operations building on Tuesday, five days before LSU visits Ole Miss. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported it first. This episode gets the facts straight and then argues the principle underneath them.
What landed Tuesday was not a lawsuit. It was discovery — interrogatories, requests for production and requests for admission — in a case Ole Miss fi...
Pete Golding Built A Week Where LSU Feels Like A Tuesday
Four days from the biggest home game Ole Miss has played in a decade, the building is calm — and Pete Golding made it that way on purpose.
Locked On Ole Miss host Steven Willis takes the positive side of the pressure question. Asked what his players have been saying about this game and how much they talk about it, Golding said: "to be honest with you, I mean, we really haven't had that dialogue." There has been no team meeting about Lane Kiffin. He walked through the real week instead — Sunday recap and corrections, lift, walkthroughs, the Rook...
Lane Kiffin Is Carrying More Pressure Than Anyone Saturday
Lane Kiffin took the podium in Baton Rouge on Monday and, without being asked to, spent a large part of it moving Saturday off his own locker room and onto himself.
Locked On Ole Miss host Steven Willis argues that is not a man who is comfortable. Kiffin called the situation "unusual" three times in one session — "one team you built and then now a new team that you're building" — then said "I know obviously a lot's gonna be made about me, but this is about the players being prepared really well and playing really well." Later, plai...
He Said What: Golding Gets Everyone Back, Names His LSU Problem
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open and the menu
0:47 Chapter 1 — KINSLER · ODOM · DENSON · KITE
2:12 Ad — Kalshi
2:39 Chapter 2 — MAKE HIM A POCKET PASSER
DESCRIPTION
Pete Golding opened LSU week Monday and gave more roster news in ninety seconds than he has given all season. This is the roster half of what came out of the two press conferences.
The availability board, in his words: Tommy Kinsler goes Tuesday after missing Charlotte. Caleb Odom is back in scout periods after not playing at all. Sharif Denson does all the scout periods, havi...
He Said What: Kiffin Says He Doesn't Outbid Anybody For Players
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open and the menu
0:47 Chapter 1 — "THAT'S NOT THE CASE"
2:14 Ad — Kalshi
2:41 Chapter 2 — "BOTH PLACES"
DESCRIPTION
Lane Kiffin met the media in Baton Rouge on Monday ahead of his return to Oxford, and two things he said have gone almost entirely unreported. This is the institutional half of that press conference.
Asked about a former Ole Miss pass rusher now playing for him, Kiffin said: I know a lot of times people think, well, we just go and get the top of the market and outpay...
What We Learned From Charlotte: The Run Game and Who's Coming Back
CHAPTERS
0:00 — Cold open and intro
0:49 — The run they could not get
2:45 — Who is coming back
DESCRIPTION
Ole Miss put up 420 total yards against Charlotte and Pete Golding still named something the offense could not do. Asked about the offensive line, he said you have to be able to line up, put your hand in the dirt when they know you are going to run it, and run the football — and then: "I don't know that we did that."
Look at what surrounded that answer. Kewan Lac...
What We Learned From Charlotte: The Third Quarter and Zero Sacks
CHAPTERS
0:00 — Cold open and intro
0:50 — The third quarter
2:45 — The number that is zero
DESCRIPTION
Ole Miss beat Charlotte 41-9 and gave up 322 yards doing it. The score is the least interesting number on the page.
Segment one is the third quarter, and Pete Golding named it himself in his opening statement: "Really disappointed on how we came out in the third quarter." Charlotte outgained Ole Miss 116-60 in that quarter, held the ball for 11:26 of the 15 minutes while taking three penalties, and opened the half wi...
Ole Miss Answered Right Tackle In 35 Snaps — With The Backup
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open, intro and both topics
0:46 Chapter 1
2:46 Chapter 2
Exactly three chapter lines plus the Kalshi read at 2:12.
DESCRIPTION (8 paragraphs):
Ole Miss published its first official depth chart of the season on Wednesday — 18 days after camp closed, and after 18 days of beat writers publishing projected two-deeps because no real one existed.
The chart lists Tommy Kinsler IV at right tackle with Connor Howes behind him, settling the competition Pete Golding called open on August 25. Then Kinsler went out against Louisville and Howes played 35 snaps in his f...
Ole Miss Put A Wall Street Guy In Charge Of Its Whole Roster
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open, intro and both topics
0:48 Chapter 1
2:49 Chapter 2
Exactly three chapter lines plus the Kalshi read at 2:15.
Ole Miss announced Jack Borris at the end of August. His background is 11-plus years at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, plus a master's in sports administration from Boston College. Not a scout. Not a former player. A finance guy.
His remit: athlete finance strategy, cap management, revenue share, NIL and roster construction — a job description that did not exist five years ago.
In July...
The First Depth Chart Of The Season Finally Landed | Ole Miss
Fall camp closed on August 22. For eighteen days Ole Miss published no depth chart, no availability report and no captains list — long enough that beat writers were running projected two-deeps, which is something you only do when a real one does not exist.
On Wednesday, Ole Miss published one. The line that matters is the right side of the offensive line: Tommy Kinsler IV is listed as the starting right tackle with Connor Howes behind him. Kinsler is the player who went down against Louisville; Howes is the one who replaced him — and Ole Miss did not give...
LSU Folded, Or The Fight Was Already Over | Ole Miss & SEC
LSU filled its final two roster spots Tuesday night to reach the 105-man limit, adding a cornerback and a defensive end. It sounds like housekeeping. It was the whole story — a full roster has no room for Dae'Quan Wright or Zxavian Harris, and LSU had deliberately been sitting on two open spots.
By Wednesday the SEC's case had come apart. The federal hearing in Birmingham was continued with no new date — "the court will reset the hearing by separate order" — meaning the conference asked for a restraining order and did not get one. Greg Sankey said the presid...
Golding: Most Comfortable I've Been Calling A Game. 80% Went On Busts.
CHAPTERS (from the measured word counts):
0:00 Cold open and today's menu
0:50 The play-caller question
2:13 Kalshi
2:47 The faceless week
DESCRIPTION
Asked Tuesday whether a head coach should still call his own defense, Pete Golding said he definitely feels comfortable doing both, that he never once felt unprepared or a step behind, and that it was probably the most comfortable he had been in his four games as a head coach. All four came against ranked teams.
In the same press conference he gave the numbers: 19 missed tack...
The SEC Told A Federal Judge The LSU Vote Happens Either Way
CHAPTERS (from the measured word counts):
0:00 Cold open and today's menu
0:52 What the SEC actually filed
2:17 Kalshi
2:51 Ole Miss already paid for this rule
DESCRIPTION
The SEC amended its federal complaint in Birmingham and asked for a restraining order so nobody can block, delay or interfere with a special meeting of the conference's presidents — a meeting whose stated purpose is deciding whether to terminate LSU under Section 3.1.5 of the SEC constitution.
Three things in that filing matter more than the word expulsion. The conference told the co...
Pete Golding Is Wrong About The Ole Miss Offensive Line
0:46 Segment one
2:10 Kalshi
2:44 Segment two
DESCRIPTION:
Pete Golding on the Ole Miss offensive line after the Louisville game, per HottyToddy's full session: "I never felt like they were an issue." Sports Illustrated's Monday report card gave that unit a C-minus and called the grade generous — the line "struggled throughout the game," and Trinidad Chambliss avoided sacks through elite pocket presence rather than protection. Jaydon Koss: he "won in spite of his offensive line, not because of it."
Both of those cannot be true. Ole Miss started two brand new tackl...
Seven Ole Miss Players Went Down And Nobody Will Say Who
0:46 Segment one
2:12 Kalshi
2:46 Segment two
DESCRIPTION:
Seven Ole Miss players either left the Louisville game or never played it. Kewan Lacy left late in the third. Rick Cleveland of Mississippi Today reported Kam Franklin, Keaton Thomas, Delano Townsend and Tommy Kinsler all left, and that "the nature and extent of their injuries are not known." The Daily Mississippian added that Antonio Kite went out early and Sharif Denson never played.
There is no availability report. No depth chart. No captains. No jersey release. Eleven days into the season, the onl...
Golding Admitted the Explosives - And Nobody Says Perkins
From the school's own practice report, published Sept. 2: Pete Golding on the scrimmage — "There were some explosives in that scrimmage because of lack of communication." The head coach, on the record, on the department's own site.
Put that next to what we know. Three of nine defensive backs return. Golding teaches Lion, Free and Ram as interchangeable back-end spots — a system that depends entirely on people talking. Safety Sharif Denson, same report, says the chemistry is good "at the moment" and they build it day by day.
The honest counterweight: a closed scrimmage is exactly wher...
The SEC Sued LSU - And 3 Former Rebels Sit Inside the Case
On Thursday the SEC sued LSU in federal court in Alabama, alleging the school waged what the conference calls a deliberate and coordinated campaign to recruit professional athletes in violation of league rules. A conference suing its own member school is not a normal week.
The Ole Miss angle nobody is writing: three of the former Rebels — Dae'Quan Wright, Zxavian Harris and Wydett Williams Jr. — are inside the underlying eligibility case. Ole Miss could have brought any of them back and declined. Pete Golding: "some of these guys who have become available don't necessarily fit a need."
11 Days, No Right Tackle: Ole Miss Silence Is the Answer
On Aug. 25 Pete Golding said the right tackle job was still an open competition, that Tommy Kinsler IV had probably flashed the most consistently, and that conditioning was the open question against this tempo.
That was eleven days ago. Since then: no depth chart, no injury report, no captains, no jersey numbers. HottyToddy previewed a Monday depth chart release on Aug. 31 and nobody has reported one ever came out.
The tell: On3's beat writers were still publishing projected depth charts on Wednesday. You don't project a depth chart that exists. Kinsler is the Miami...
The Baton Rouge Hearing Is an Ole Miss Story. Nobody Says So.
Thursday morning, Judge William Jorden of Louisiana's 19th Judicial District in East Baton Rouge Parish decides whether to convert a temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. That order currently stops the SEC and Commissioner Greg Sankey from punishing schools that take on former professional players.
Law Commentary puts the plaintiff group at 33 athletes. The conference says it is prepared to contest the allegations at Thursday morning's hearing and defend its rights as a voluntary association.
Every version of this story is written as LSU against the SEC. Three of the players inside it are...
Baker Says Kewan Lacy's Carries Drop. Lacy Wouldn't Say It.
306 carries. That's Ole Miss's official number for Kewan Lacy in 2025 — an FBS high and a single-season school record, alongside 1,567 yards and 24 touchdowns. Fifteen or more carries in twelve separate games, a season-high 31 against Florida, 20.4 a game. (PFF counts 307; a third figure of 308 is also circulating.)
Offensive coordinator John David Baker, on Aug. 10: I don't want him to carry that ball that much. And the reason — running it that many times between the tackles, you're going to break. And he did. He had shoulder surgery in the offseason after being hurt against Tulane in the first round of the...
Chambliss Isn't the Example — Two Cases, One Bad Argument
Trinidad Chambliss was asked Monday whether it bothers him when people lump his name in with the eligibility cases at LSU. His answer, via HottyToddy: people are going to say what they want to say, they'll always have a narrative or an opinion about you, but he doesn't give that any mind — the only thing that matters is what he thinks and what his team thinks.
That's the right answer for a quarterback four days out. Here's the part he doesn't have to say: these are two different cases and they are not close. Chambliss was enrolled an...
Jeff Brohm Told On His Own Team Three Times In 20 Minutes
Jeff Brohm answered straight in his weekly presser, and in doing it he told on his own team three times.
One: Louisville opens with a first-time defensive play caller, and Brohm volunteered that communication will be critical and that it has hurt them in years past when they were not on the same page — in the same breath as saying Ole Miss will challenge them with tempo.
Two: asked about the middle of his defensive line, he said there is inexperience there and that the strength is on the outside. Everyone has spent two weeks on...
Throw LSU Out? 15 SEC Schools Are Actually Discussing It
Ross Dellenger reported that the general counsels and presidents of 15 SEC schools — everybody except LSU — have been discussing what to do about a program they believe is about to break the conference constitution.
On the table: expulsion, membership probation, schools refusing to take the field against a team carrying a player the conference says is ineligible, and a federal lawsuit by the conference against one of its own members.
The SEC bylaws run 48 pages and the word expulsion is not in them. But Section 4.12 lets the presidents impose probation, bar a member from the championship, bar...
Six Days To Kickoff And Ole Miss Still Has No Right Tackle
CHAPTERS (three, derived from the measured word counts at 155 wpm plus the 20-second ad):
▪ 0:00 — Cold open and the menu
▪ 0:25 — Nine days, still no right tackle
▪ 2:44 — Perkins at 97
DESCRIPTION:
On Aug. 24 Pete Golding said: "We have this week to decide that, and then we'll probably make that decision next week." That week came and went. Camp closed Aug. 22. It is Aug. 31, six days from kickoff, and Ole Miss still has no announced starting right tackle.
The competition is Tommy Kinsler IV (Miami) against Carius Curne (LSU). Golding said Kinsler "has probably...
The SEC Didn't Lose This Week. It Picked A Different Week To Fight.
CHAPTERS (three, derived from the measured word counts at 155 wpm plus the 20-second ad):
▪ 0:00 — Cold open and the menu
▪ 0:28 — A Sunday opener and a six-day week
▪ 2:40 — The job Golding almost said no to
DESCRIPTION:
Every headline in America says the SEC got humiliated in court. Here is the contrarian read, and it comes from the best possible source for an Ole Miss audience.
What happened: Thursday, Dallas County judge Martin Hoffman issued a temporary restraining order naming the SEC and commissioner Greg Sankey personally. Friday, Baton Rouge judge William Jorden...
