On Tuesday, the SEC revealed each team’s three assigned annual opponents for the next four seasons that will go into effect starting in 2026. And while most programs were largely able to maintain their longstanding rivalries, others weren’t nearly as pleased about all of their annual opponents.
The Ole Miss Rebels are set to face the LSU Tigers, the Mississippi State Bulldogs, and the Oklahoma Sooners annually through the 2026-2029 seasons. Two of these annual opponents, in-state rivals Mississippi State and LSU, have been longstanding foes in what used to be the SEC West prior to the removal of conference divisions after the 2023 season. So they certainly make sense to be annual opponents against Ole Miss.
When asked about the SEC’s annual scheduling announcement during his press conference on Tuesday, Kiffin wasn’t all that interested in going into detail on his thoughts on the matter. But on Wednesday, he voiced his “disappointment” in Oklahoma being named an annual opponent, explaining that Ole Miss and Oklahoma simply “don’t have anything in common” aside from playing in the SEC over the past two years.
“Yeah, Oklahoma is really disappointing,” Kiffin said during an SEC teleconference on Wednesday. “We don’t have anything in common with them or our fans, so that doesn’t make any sense at all. And so that’s unfortunate with so many great teams that we’ve played for a long time here, especially from our SEC West years. So that’s unfortunate. It is what it is. It’s great to… obviously the Egg Bowl is staying, so they only had two choices. So the LSU makes sense, and that’s great. The other one makes no sense.”
It’s hard to disagree with the assessment of Lane Kiffin considering Ole Miss and Oklahoma have played one another just twice in the history of both storied programs, once last season in SEC play and once before in the 1999 Independence Bowl.
The two teams are set to play for a third time ever this season when Ole Miss heads to Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma for a Week 9 matchup. So maybe there will be a bit of bad blood that carries over from that game into their four years of annual matchups in the future.
Either way, it’s a bit of a bizarre choice for the SEC. But it is not the lone point of contention across the conference. Notably, the Florida Gators, and the LSU Tigers, who have played in an annual game since 1971, were not annual opponents to one another from 2026-2029.
So clearly, the SEC may need to revisit their decision on which teams are annual opponents when 2030 rolls around.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.