Did Ole Miss football have greatest season in program history? Here's 2025 team's competition
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OXFORD — Longtime Mississippi sportswriter Rick Cleveland can recall his first Ole Miss football memory in vivid detail.
He was in Hattiesburg, where he grew up. Cleveland and his father sat in their kitchen, listening to a radio broadcast of the 1959 game between Ole Miss and LSU. Because the game was in Baton Rouge, their signal on WWL out of New Orleans was clear.
“You could hear, ‘Cannon takes the punt on the bounce at the 11, he has a tackler at the 15,’ and then you can’t hear anything because of the crowd noise,” said Cleveland, a Mississippi Today columnist and a 2017 Mississippi Sports Hall of fame inductee. Cleveland has been in the business for 60 years, including serving as the Clarion Ledger’s sports editor until 2012.
LSU running back Billy Cannon, the eventual Heisman Trophy winner, handed the Rebels their only loss that day with a late punt return to win 7-6. Ole Miss wound up dominating a rematch with LSU 21-0 in the Sugar Bowl to finish 10-1. It was the first time Ole Miss finished with a claim to the national championship.
Cleveland covered perhaps the greatest Ole Miss team since this season. The Rebels finished 13-2 in 2025 with a Sugar Bowl win and Fiesta Bowl loss to Miami in the CFP semifinals.
Was the 2025 season the greatest Ole Miss football season of all time? It’s an impossible question.
Why judging Ole Miss football’s best season is so difficult
Jeff Roberson, a Mississippi sportswriter since 1991 and former special assistant to the athletics director for history at Ole Miss, agrees that the 1959 Ole Miss team is probably the greatest challenge to the 2025 team’s argument.
The 1959 team’s dominance makes it stand out, even when compared to the 1960 and 1962 Ole Miss teams that also claim a national championship. The NCAA only recognizes the 1960 team as a national champion and that title was split with Minnesota. Ole Miss was recognized as the 1959 champion by the Berryman, Dunkel and Sagarin polls.
The 1959 team scored 329 points and gave up 21. The points allowed statistic doesn’t even do it justice.
The only touchdowns scored on that team all season were when the ball was turned over at Ole Miss’ 5-yard line against Tulane, 7-yard line against Tennessee and on Cannon’s punt return.
“Different era, different style of football, but defensively based, you know, a defensive team that was just as good as any that’s ever played, certainly in that era,” Roberson said.
The 2025 team is the winningest Ole Miss team. The previous record was 11 wins in 2023. Because they won 13 games, including two in the CFP, this Rebels team can make a case for best team ever.
But how does it stack up to coach Johnny Vaught’s great 1959 team?
“It’s really hard,” Roberson said. “But this was just a special season and a different season, and, you know, the most wins ever, because you play more games.”
There was no CFP in 1959, or extra games on the schedule. Beyond that, Ole Miss was still segregated. The stadium, just Hemingway Stadium at the time, had no lights and held about 32,000 fans.
“It was a totally different sport,” Cleveland said. “It was segregated. It was platoon. Players played both ways. If you came out for a play in a quarter, you couldn’t go back in until the next quarter.”
It comes down to the definition of “great.” If you favor winning, the 2025 team won more than any other. If you favor dominance, the 1959 team is the best.
One thing both teams have in common is avenging a lone, road loss in the Sugar Bowl. This season, Ole Miss beat Georgia 39-34.
2025 team probably had craziest Ole Miss football season
The Rebels dealt with a lot in 2025. Defensive end Corey Adams was shot and killed outside a house party near Memphis on July 19.
Then starting quarterback Austin Simmons was hurt, clearing the way for backup Trinidad Chambliss to become a star. Coach Lane Kiffin left for LSU on Nov. 30 and Pete Golding was promoted to head coach from defensive coordinator. His first game as coach was Ole Miss’ first playoff game.
Assistant coach Joe Judge said the 2025 Ole Miss season was crazier than when he was an assistant on the New England Patriots and star tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested on a murder charge.
Perhaps the most solid claim the 2025 Ole Miss team has is that it played one of the wildest seasons ever.
“With what they had to go through, and the coaching changes and the way things unfolded, one of the most unique seasons in college football, certainly recent era,” Roberson said. “Or maybe ever, just because of all they went through to continue to succeed in this new era of the College Football Playoff.”
Sam Hutchens covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at Shutchens@gannett.com or reach him on X at @Sam_Hutchens_
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Is 2025 Ole Miss football team the best in Rebels history?
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