We’re a little over 24 hours away from the Allstate Sugar Bowl matchup between the Ole Miss Rebels and the Georgia Bulldogs in the lovely city of New Orleans. By the time nighttime falls on the Big Easy on Thursday, it’ll be Pete Golding and the Ole Miss Rebels ready to take centerstage as they embrace the moment against one of the elite programs in college football, a program that the Rebels have grown accustomed to seeing on the other sideline, once that ball sails into the Superdome sky nothing else will matter, it’ll be the Rebels and the Bulldogs for the last place in the College Football Playoff semifinal round on the line, it will be a mixture of new blood in Ole Miss, and old elite blood in the Georgia Bulldogs, but despitie that, Coach Golding has the Rebels in a position on Thursday night to make history by taking Ole Miss further than ever before. 

Sure, these two teams played before, and Georgia won in Athens; however, the two teams were different teams when they played in October. Since that matchup in October, Ole Miss has undergone a coaching change when Lane Kiffin decided it was best for him to leave his program in the middle of a College Playoff run. Coach Pete Golding has stood tall and allowed the Ole Miss players to bask in the glory of representing the university in the College Football Playoff. Then you have the maturation of Kewan Lacy, Trinidad Chambliss, among others, in the system, and, in all honesty, this Ole Miss team, which is about to take on Georgia on Thursday night, is the exact Ole Miss football team that has the potential to win a National Championship. 

For Ole Miss, despite taking on the underdog role for Thursday night, there was something that changed inside the locker room when Coach Golding took over as Head Coach of the Ole Miss Rebels. This team was already tight before all of that went down, but when it went down, a switch flipped, and the team got closer, and the coaching staff that was left took a step back and allowed for the guys that deserve this moment bask in the glory they’ve brought to Ole Miss this season. 

As the Rebels inch closer to kickoff with Georgia, that mindset remains. The Bulldogs might have more talent on the roster, but what they don’t have is the adversity this Ole Miss team has had to face and overcome just to be in the moment where they’re playing in the Sugar Bowl. No matter what happens on Thursday night, what Coach Golding and this Ole Miss football team have done will likely forever change Ole Miss football for generations to come. We saw it during the first round matchup with Tulane. There’s a new era of football in Oxford that era has returned Ole Miss to being Ole Miss, where no one person is bigger than the program itself. Everyone has a purpose and a job, and all of that will be on full display for the world to see on Thursday night, and the Rebels are ready to take that spotlight and channel that for energy that benefits the rest of the program. 

You see, Ole Miss has been here before, they’ve been through the fire, they have had to overcome adversity, and have faced the doubters head-on this season and proved them wrong. Ole Miss might fall short on Thursday night, but it won’t be because of a lack of effort or preparation. This team is hungry and ready to prove once and for all that Ole Miss football is here to stay as one of the new-age programs of college football. 

Ole Miss and Georgia will get underway in the Sugar Bowl with a kickoff slated for 7:00 on ESPN. 

Photo Credits- Ole Miss football on X