Know Your Foe: Oklahoma Sooners vs. Ole Miss Rebels

The Oklahoma Sooners will be back at home in Week 11, with a record of 5-4 overall and 3-3 in the SEC. Head coach Brent Venables and his team will be looking to win consecutive games for the first time all season and get their first home win in conference play in 2026.

The up-and-down season began with a win over UTEP, but then a loss to Michigan. The Sooners beat New Mexico, but lost to Georgia. After the bye week, OU beat Texas, then lost to Kentucky. Oklahoma then beat Mississippi State, but lost to South Carolina. After beating Florida last week, the Sooners are looking to build on their first win of the season.

This week, the Ole Miss Rebels will be in Norman. They went 13-2 last year, made the College Football Playoff with an 11-1 record, and beat Tulane at home and Georgia in the Sugar Bowl in the first two rounds. A Fiesta Bowl semifinal loss against Miami ended their season just short of the title game.

It's been a whirlwind 12 months for the Rebs, beginning with the infamous end-of-regular-season departure of former head coach Lane Kiffin, who left Oxford to coach LSU. Kiffin's defensive coordinator, Pete Golding, was hired as the full-time head coach and led the team through the CFP run. Now, Golding is in his first full season as the program's head coach. He arrived at Ole Miss after stints as the defensive coordinator at UTSA and Alabama. He was the defensive play-caller for 'Bama's 2020 national title team that went undefeated. He was Ole Miss' defensive coordinator for three seasons before landing the head-coaching job.

In 2026, the Rebels are 6-3 and 4-3 in the SEC. A strong start to the season saw the Rebels beat Louisville (41-38), Charlotte (41-9), and get revenge against Kiffin and LSU with a 32-24 win at home. A loss to Florida (52-28) followed, but Golding's team bounced back after its bye week, beating Vanderbilt (52-17) and Missouri (31-3). However, the last three weeks have seen the Rebels lose to Texas (34-27), beat Auburn (45-15), and get dominated last week by Georgia in a 42-7 home loss.

This game pits two teams coming off of very different emotional results in great primetime atmospheres, and if the SEC has taught us anything this year, it's that it is definitely a week-to-week league in 2026.

On offense, the Rebels are led by co-offensive coordinators John David Baker and Cody Woodiel. Baker is the play-caller, with Golding having hired him away from East Carolina ahead of this season. He spent two years there, after he'd been on Kiffin's staff in Oxford from 2021 to 2023. He'll be matched up with Venables, who will call the defense for the Sooners. Woodiel comes over from Miami, where he'd coached for the last four years on Mario Cristobal's staff.

Baker's offense is very similar to what Ole Miss has run for the past few years with Kiffin and former offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. at the controls. There are elements of the Art Briles-style veer-and-shoot that OU has already seen this year against Mississippi State and South Carolina, but there are also plenty of pro-style or more traditional spread elements in the mix. Baker and the Rebels put a lot of pressure on opposing defenses, and they have the talent to play well against anyone. Wide receivers coach L'Damian Washington has worked under Venables before, as he was OU's interim WRs coach in 2022.

It all starts with star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who came out of nowhere to take the starting job and run with it for Ole Miss last year. He won a court case this offseason to get to come back and play one more collegiate season, and he is one of the most dynamic dual-threat QBs in the nation. Chambliss' playmaking ability and accuracy gave the Sooners fits last year, and it's yet another week against an athletic signal-caller for Venables' defense.

Star running back Kewan Lacy is out for the season, which means the ground game will lean on Makhi Frazier (if he's able to play) and Shekai Mills-Knight. The Rebels certainly won't be shy about running Chambliss as well. Through the air, wide receivers Deuce Alexander and Horatio Fields are the top targets, along with tight end Caleb Odom. The Rebels have a dynamite passing attack, and OU's secondary will have to be up to the challenge this week. Offensive lineman Troy Everett will return to Owen Field this week after a long career as a Sooner, including serving as a captain last year.

On the other side of the ball, OU interim offensive coordinator Jason Witten will be in his second game as the play-caller, after taking over for Ben Arbuckle last week. He'll match wits with Golding, who calls Ole Miss' defense himself. Golding, a great defensive mind and longtime play-caller, consulted Venables when he took the head coaching job about continuing to call plays, as Venables has wrestled with the play-calling duties at OU. Upon Venables' suggestion, Golding decided to continue calling his own plays.

Co-defensive coordinators Bryan Brown and Marcus Woodson will be aiding Golding as he looks to get the best of Witten. Brown has worked for Golding since 2024, after serving as defensive coordinator at both Louisville and Cincinnati. Woodson is in his first season in Oxford, after stints at Memphis, Auburn, Florida State, and Arkansas.

Golding's unit has experienced peaks and valleys this season, and linebackers Keaton Thomas, Luke Ferrelli, and Tah'j Butler lead the team in tackles, though Thomas won't play this week. Three players do most of the getting after the quarterback for this team. Defensive end Blake Purchase (4.5 sacks), linebacker Suntarine Perkins (3.5 sacks), and defensive end Will Echoles (2.5 sacks), will draw plenty of attention from the OU o-line, especially as it's looking likely that Echoles will play this week.

Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer needs to build on his performance against Florida last week, and you can expect that Oklahoma is going to try to continue to bleed the clock, shorten the game, and keep the ball on the ground. It worked well last week against the Gators, and that's where the Sooners would love to live again this week against the Rebels.

OU special teams coordinator Doug Deakin will face off against Ole Miss special teams coordinator Jake Schoonover this week, and he's in his fourth year at Ole Miss, arriving at the same time as Golding, though he came from Arkansas State. Schoonover's unit is one of the nation's best, led by star kicker Lucas Carneiro, who is one of the nation's best. Oklahoma's special teams had a poor day in bad weather against the Rebels last year, and with rain in the forecast again this weekend, kicker Tate Sandell and company will have to be on point against a very strong group.

OU and Ole Miss have just three meetings all-time between, but they're now annual rivals for the next four years, at least according to the SEC. The first meeting came in the 1999 Independence Bowl in Bob Stoops' first season at the helm of the Sooners. OU lost a tight 27-25 game that night in Shreveport, but went undefeated and won the national championship the next year.

The last two meetings have come in the last two seasons as SEC foes. Oklahoma went to Oxford in 2024, losing 26-14. Ole Miss came to Norman last year and again defeated OU, improving their record against the Sooners to 3-0 all-time. The 34-26 loss was the final loss of Oklahoma's 2025 regular season, as Venables' team won out in November to advance to the CFP.

Ole Miss is wounded, desperate, and hungry heading into Saturday afternoon's game. They must win out to have any shot at returning to the playoff, and they got embarrassed on a big-time stage last week. Venables' Sooners have typically played better football in his tenure when their backs are against the wall, and they've struggled when the other team is the one who has to punch its way out. Building on success is not something Oklahoma has done well this season, and it's certainly been a talking point inside the walls of the Switzer Center this week.

Ole Miss is talented and explosive enough to pull away in this game, especially if OU's offense reverts back to its old self for long stretches of this game. However, if the Sooners get help on offense, contain Chambliss, and get a few breaks on defense, they are good enough to win this game against a Rebel team that has a few more issues than it did last year.

One more win would ensure Oklahoma's 28th-straight bowl berth, but the focus right now for Venables' Sooners is on finishing out this year in the best possible fashion. Last week's cathartic win over Florida was impressive and an encouraging sign after last week, but can Oklahoma build on that success and string together wins? It's something this team has been unable to do all season long, but the next opportunity to change that comes this week. Seven or eight wins looks a whole lot better than five or six wins, and a strong finish to the year could at least salvage a little pride from a 2026 season gone wrong.

Kickoff for Oklahoma-Ole Miss is scheduled for 3:15 p.m. CT in Norman on Saturday on the SEC Network.

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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Know Your Foe: Oklahoma Sooners vs. Ole Miss Rebels