After a month-long wait, Ole Miss Football is back and ready to close out the 2024 season with a bang as they take the field in Jacksonville, Florida, where they play the Duke Blue Devils in the 2025 TaxSlayer Gator Bowl. For the 2024 Ole Miss team, the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl is the final ride for guys like Jaxson Dart and Caden Prieskorn, among others; for them, it’s the final time they’ll trot out of the locker room sporting the red and navy as they prepare for battle once more with their brothers representing Ole Miss.

For Coach Kiffin, Thursday night is the final time he had the privilege of coaching guys who gave their all for the program, paving the way for future teams to come in and take the Rebels back to competing for a National Championship.

Coming into the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl matchup with Duke, Ole Miss has seen the highs and lows of the sport after losing three games, including one at home to Kentucky that eventually kept the Rebels from their ultimate goal of reaching the College Football Playoff. Ole Miss went all in on the 2024 season. Still, the season has been one where when the final whistle sounds on Thursday night, the Rebel Nation will significantly appreciate the group of seniors who helped reshape the program into a contender on the national scene.

From a matchup standpoint, Ole Miss comes into the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl against Duke as a seventeen-point favorite over the Blue Devils. On paper, Ole Miss is a vastly superior team on both sides of the ball, likely dominating a depleted Duke team that has seen a mass exodus of pivot players to the transfer portal. Both come into the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl with identical records of 9-3. Still, Ole Miss’s talent will likely prevail the Rebels to victory, earning Lane Kiffin another ten-win season as Head Coach of the Ole Miss Rebels.

Ole Miss and Duke will get underway on Thursday night following the College Football Playoff matchup in the Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame.