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NEW ORLEANS — For much of Thursday night’s Sugar Bowl showdown with Georgia, it looked as if Ole Miss’ dream football season was careening toward a rude wake-up call.

Luckily for Rebel fans, Trinidad Chambliss found the snooze button.

The Ole Miss quarterback put together a performance for the ages, passing for 362 yards and two touchdowns to rally his team to a stunning 39-34 win over the SEC Champion Bulldogs.

With the win, the Rebels (13-1) punched their ticket to the semifinal round of the College Football Playoff, where they’ll face Miami in the Fiesta Bowl next Thursday in Tempe, Arizona.

And if that round goes anything like the second one did, the Magnolia State may have to invest in more respirators.

Down 9 points at the half, the Rebels scored back-to-back touchdowns to open the fourth quarter and held off a fierce Georgia rally.

Chambliss was the star — the senior passed for 362 yards and two touchdowns — but there were no shortages of heroic performances.

Despite coming in as a six-point underdog Ole Miss out-gained Georgia 473 yards to 343, and won despite several bad breaks.

The Rebels settled for field goals on two of their first three possessions in the first quarter, taking an early 6-0 lead.

Georgia’s splendid quarterback Gunner Stockton responded with scoring runs to cap back-to-back 75-yard touchdown drives and put Georgia ahead 14-12.

Ole Miss was driving to take the lead back before the halftime break, but Georgia defender Daylen Everette scooped up a rare fumble from Ole Miss tailback Kewan Lacy and raced 47 yards to extend the Georgia lead to 21-12.

“We definitely didn’t play our cleanest football in the first half on either side of the ball,” Ole Miss coach Pete Golding said. “I kind of challenged them at halftime and said, you know, look, we were up nine on these guys going into the fourth quarter last time. Let’s play 30 minutes of football and out-physical them and execute. They just responded like they have all year.”

The Rebels traded a touchdown — a fumble-redeeming seven-yard bruising run for Lacy — for a Georgia field goal in the third quarter to trim the Bulldogs’ lead to 24-19.

That’s when the real fun started.

Lacy’s second touchdown came on a five-yard run and put Ole Miss ahead 27-24 with 11:29 to go.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart rolled the dice on the Bulldogs’ ensuing possession, opting to try to convert a 4th-and-2 situation at the Georgia 33-yard line.

Stockton rolled to his right looking for a receiver downfield, but didn’t see Ole Miss defender Suntarine Perkins coming from his blind side. Perkins drilled Stockton for a sack, forcing a fumble which he recovered at the Bulldogs’ 23-yard line.

“We knew that was going to be a big play in the game,” Ole Miss defensive MVP Will Echoles said. “I’m not going to say I was surprised, but Perkins made a great play.”

The turnover set Ole Miss up with a short field, and Chambliss cashed it in two plays later with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Harrison Wallace to put Ole Miss ahead 34-24 with nine minutes left.

But the Bulldogs had a response of their own: a seven-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that trimmed the Ole Miss lead down to three, at 34-31 with 7:03 to go. They tied the game with 56 seconds left on a 24-yard Peyton Woodring field goal.

Luckily, Chambliss had a little magic left in his back pocket. 

Facing a third-and-five at his own 30, the senior found receiver De’Zhaun Stribling streaking down the home sideline for a 40-yard completion that gave the Rebels a new set of downs at the Georgia 30.

Two plays later, Ole Miss’ splendid kicker Lucas Carniero drilled a 47-yard field goal to regain the lead, 37-34, with just six seconds left.

Georgia tried a trick play on the ensuing kickoff and lateraled the ball out of bounds on their own goal-line, giving Ole Miss two points for a safety and extending the lead to 39-34.

Georgia got the ball back on an onside kick, but a final play that featured 11 laterals ended with a 12-yard loss and Ole Miss storming the field.

It was a strange, almost surreal ending to a marvelously competitive game.

“It was an incredible college football game,” Smart said. “It’s what the college football playoff was built for, to have battles like that.”

When the Mississippi Legislature reconvenes in the Capitol’s marbled halls in January, one voice will scarcely be heard: constituents’. 

Citizens and advocates are occasionally invited by lawmakers to speak at the Capitol. But unlike some other statehouses in the U.S., there are no formal opportunities for constituents in Mississippi to provide public comment or testimony in committee hearings, remotely or in writing. 

“Constituents should have a voice when it comes to policy making,” said Sarah Moreland-Russell, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis who has studied testimony’s impact on the lawmaking process. 

Moreland-Russell said she was “very surprised” to learn that there are no opportunities for Mississippi’s citizens to regularly provide testimony at the statehouse. 

“If you’re not hearing from the people that are actually being affected by a policy, then how do you know it’s truly going to be effective?” she asked.

In Louisiana, House and Senate rules mandate proponents and opponents of bills have the opportunity to speak on a piece of legislation. In Alaska, a network of 22 offices across the state provide opportunities to participate in legislative meetings and submit written public comment, as well as provide legislative information to constituents in remote parts of the state. Every bill in Colorado receives a hearing with public comment. And in Arizona, an online system allows residents to register opinions and request to testify on bills from their homes. 

Moreland-Russell’s research showed that most legislators, regardless of political party, find testimony from constituents and experts influential. Testimony increased lawmakers’ awareness of issues, encouraged them to conduct additional research and sometimes even changed their votes. 

“Stories can be extremely influential,” Moreland-Russell said. She said legislators found personal anecdotes paired with data to back it up most impactful. 

In Mississippi, bills frequently fly through the committee process, oftentimes with little discussion by lawmakers and no input from the public. The Senate’s typo-riddled bill to phase out the income tax — one of the most notable bills to come out of the 2025 legislative session — quickly passed through committee with little debate. 

Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory who has served in the Legislature since 1984, said committee hearings used to involve frequent debate, amendments and discussion among subcommittees.

“Everything now is just perfunctory,” he said, meaning it is routine or superficial. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many state legislatures implemented new ways for the public  to participate remotely, including options to present remote testimony or gather constituent feedback online.

But Mississippians who do not live in Jackson or can not attend the Legislature still do not have the opportunity to watch many of the state’s committee proceedings. The Mississippi House of Representatives does not livestream or record its committee meetings, though it does livestream proceedings in the House chamber.

Meanwhile, the Mississippi Senate livestreams most of its committee meetings and all of its full chamber proceedings. This is a marker of Lt. Gov Delbert Hosemann’s commitment to transparency, spokesperson Hannah Milliet said in an email. 

House Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, told Mississippi Today in 2024 that he has no objection to livestreaming committee hearings and said the Rules Committee would look into the policy. 

House Rules Chairman Fred Shanks, a Republican from Brandon, said in November there has not been any talk of livestreaming the meetings. White did not respond to a request for comment. 

Simple changes, such as requiring committees to provide notice of hearings and publish agendas ahead of time, would give constituents more opportunities to participate in the legislative process, said Safia Malin, interim policy director for Jackson-based civic engagement nonprofit, One Voice.

The Senate has a page on the Legislature’s website to publish agendas, though they are not always shared. The House does not post agendas online. And committee hearings in both chambers occasionally occur at the last minute. 

Rep. Jeramey Anderson, a Democrat from Escatawpa, has proposed a rule to require House committees to post agendas 24 hours before meeting for the past seven years. None have ever made it out of committee. 

“Mississippians deserve to know what bills are being taken up before they walk into a committee room — not five minutes before, and not after the decisions are already made,” Anderson said in a written statement to Mississippi Today. 

“The refusal to provide even basic notice isn’t an accident,” he said. “It’s a deliberate choice that keeps the public from testifying, keeps advocates from participating, and keeps voters from holding their elected officials accountable.” 

The state Legislature is allowed to meet behind closed doors. The Mississippi Ethics Commission has repeatedly ruled that the Legislature is not covered by the state’s open meetings law. Hinds County Chancellor Dewayne Thomas affirmed the ruling in February. 

The House Republican Caucus — which holds a strong majority — frequently meets behind closed doors before committee meetings, effectively shielding discussion on legislation from the public.  

Shanks said he has never had a constituent ask him about speaking at the Capitol. He said he makes his phone number available for constituents to call him at any time.  

“As far as somebody making a public comment at a committee meeting, a lot of our committee meetings are pretty quick, and some of them are last minute. They may have one right after (floor) session,” Shanks said. 

“It would be pretty hard to do.”

For the fifth straight year, lawmakers will debate restoring Mississippi’s ballot initiative when they convene at the Capitol in January. 

House Constitution Chairman Price Wallace, a Republican from Mendenhall, and Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave, told Mississippi Today that they will likely file bills to give Mississippians a way to circumvent the Legislature and place issues on a statewide ballot. 

“It’s important,” England said. “It’s important for the people to feel like ‘If our Legislature is not reacting to things we want, then we want to have this process available to us.’”

Mississippians had the constitutional right to a ballot initiative starting in 1914, but the state Supreme Court threw it out in 1922. The initiative went dormant until the Legislature and voters restored the right by passing a measure in 1992, allowing voters to amend the state constitution. But the Supreme Court again nullified it on technical grounds in 2021 in a ruling on a lawsuit over voters passing a medical marijuana initiative.

Ever since the Mississippi Supreme Court invalidated the ballot initiative then, legislators have been unable to reach a consensus on how to restore the right to voters. 

Since the court’s ruling, some lawmakers have questioned whether Mississippi needs an initiative and raised concerns that uber-wealthy out-of-state special interests can manipulate voters through ballot initiatives. 

To assuage these concerns, Senate leaders have proposed a new initiative process that requires petitioners to collect a larger number of voters’ signatures to have something placed on a ballot than in the previous process. 

“The process should be difficult because it goes around and goes outside our constitutional republic system of government,” England said. 

House leaders, on the other hand, have pushed for an initiative process similar to the previous one. Last year,  Rep. Wallace advocated for a process that required petitioners to gather around 140,000 signatures before it could be considered on the ballot. 

But the Simpson County Republican said he hopes lawmakers could work constructively this year to find some common ground on how to restore the process. 

“We’re all going to work on something,” Wallace said. 

Both House and Senate leaders agree that a new initiative process should only allow voters to make changes to state law, not the Constitution, and not allow voters to propose initiatives related to abortion and the public pension system. 

During the 30 years that the state had an initiative, only seven proposals made it to a statewide ballot: two initiatives for term limits, eminent domain reform, voter ID, a personhood amendment, medical marijuana, and a measure requiring lawmakers to fully fund public education.

Of those seven, only eminent domain, voter ID and medical marijuana were approved by voters. The rest were rejected.

NEW ORLEANS — If 76-year-old Archie Manning was listed on the College Football Playoffs injury report for the Sugar Bowl it would say: Ole Miss quarterback Manning (lower back) extremely doubtful.

“My back has just been giving me fits lately. I can hardly get around,” Manning said Tuesday from the St. Charles Avenue condo where he and wife Olivia live. “I could get on the elevator to a suite in the Superdome. It’s just getting to the elevator that’s the problem. But I’ll be watching. You better believe I’ll be watching.”

Fifty-six years ago, on New Year’s Day, 1970, Manning, then 20, was most definitely ready to go. Legendary Clarion Ledger sports columnist Carl Walters described it this way in the next day’s paper: “The Ole Miss Rebels became the winningest team in Sugar Bowl history this bright but cold New Year’s Day, holding off the battling, third-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks for a 27-22 victory in a thrilling contest that will be ranked with the best ever played in post-season competition.”

Manning passed for 273 yards and a touchdown, ran for another touchdown and totaled 318 yards of total offense to win the Miller-Digby Trophy as the game’s Most Valuable Player. As was the case every time Manning took the field, the numbers don’t tell the entire story. It was the competitive flair with which he played – the zigging and zagging all over the field – that stole the Sugar Bowl show.

Says Skipper Jernigan, an outstanding Ole Miss guard back then and Manning’s long-time pal, “I just remember chasing his red-headed ass all over Tulane Stadium trying to block for him. Every time I’d go to block somebody, Archie would turn and go the other direction. He was all over the place and none of the rest of us were fast enough to keep up with him.”

And this will tell you something about Ole Miss’s rich Sugar Bowl history: Manning is one of six Rebel quarterbacks to have won the Sugar Bowl’s MVP trophy. Count them, six: Raymond Brown (1958), Bobby Ray Franklin (1960), Jake Gibbs (1961), Glynn Griffing (1963), Manning (1970) and Chad Kelly (2016).

“Seemed like when I was growing up, Coach Vaught had Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl about every other year,” Manning said. “We had a great Sugar Bowl experience. I’ll never forget it. We lost three games that season, but at the end of the year we were playing as well or better than anybody in the country.”

Jernigan put it another way: “When No. 18 was clicking, we were hard to handle.”

Tulane Stadium, packed with more than 80,000 fans, was what Manning remembers most.

“God, I loved that place,” Manning said. “It still had real grass back then, and there were hedges around the field. And, man, so many people were there. I had never seen that many people in one place before. I’ll tell you this much, I enjoyed playing in Tulane Stadium that day a whole lot more than I did my first four years with the Saints.”

Arkansas and Ole Miss chewed up the field so badly the field was still a mess 10 days later when the Kansas City Chiefs trounced the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in Super Bowl IV. In fact, the NFL required the Saints to install artificial turf before the league would award the city another Super Bowl. The sad truth is that rock-hard Astroturf at Tulane Stadium and later in the Superdome might have something to do with Manning’s back issues today.

That Ole Miss made the Sugar Bowl that year was a story in itself. The Rebels suffered one-point losses early in the season to Kentucky and Alabama and was solidly defeated by Houston in the Astrodome at mid-season.

Then came November and upset victories over No. 8 LSU (26-23) and No. 3 Tennessee (38-0).

“Coach Vaught told us before the Tennessee game that if we somehow beat them, he guaranteed us he would get us in the Sugar Bowl,” Manning said. “And he did.”

But first, Ole Miss had to beat Mississippi State, no easy task at the time. “State had Tommy Pharr throwing and Sammy Milner and David Smith catching,” Manning said. “We had tied them in Oxford the year before and we had to play ‘em in Starkville that year and, man, they could really throw the football and put up some points.”

Ole Miss, with Manning leading the way, prevailed 48-22, and true to his word, Vaught lobbied the Rebels into the Sugar Bowl. There, they were to face the loser of the Dec. 6, Arkansas-Texas “Game of the Century,” a game so big even President Richard Nixon attended and declared the Dec. 6 game was for the national championship.

“We all thought Arkansas was the better team,” Manning said. “So did Coach Vaught. Arkansas had beaten Georgia in the Sugar Bowl the year before. We thought we would be playing Texas, not Arkansas”

Instead, Texas rallied from a 14-0 fourth quarter deficit to beat the Razorbacks 15-14.

“We really thought we were playing the best team in the country in Arkansas, but we knew we could play with them,” Manning said.

Fullback Bo Bowen got the Rebels off to a fantastic start, busting through a wide hole cleared by Jernigan and Worthy McClure for a 69-yard touchdown run. 

“Bo was just a great back,” Manning said. “He was really a tailback playing out of position at fullback but he really hit his stride the last half of that season.”

After that, Manning pretty much took control of the game, running and throwing the Rebels to a 24-6 first half lead. The Rebels got a lot more conservative offensively in the second half but hung on to win.

Fifty-six years later, Manning has vivid memories and not just of Tulane Stadium and the team headquarters, the old Fountainbleu Hotel, both long since gone. Among them:

• Of a Sugar Bowl party the week of the game, during which a magician called up Rebel wide receiver Vernon Studdard to the stage to be part of his act. The joke was on the magician, because when Studdard returned to his seat, he had the magician’s watch.
• Of how good that Arkansas team was. “They were coached by Frank Broyles, a Hall of Famer who was Coach Vaught’s good friend,” Manning said. “They had a great wide receiver Chuck Dicus, who had been the Sugar Bowl MVP the year before, and a great quarterback Bill Montgomery. Both those guys became great friends. So did Coach Broyles, who never did beat Coach Vaught. I ran into Broyles years and years later at Augusta National and he was still talking about Bo Bowen’s run.”
• Of Arkansas All American middle linebacker Cliff Powell. “Man, that guy would ever more hit you,” Manning said.

Years and years later, Archie and Olivia Manning decided to watch a replay of that 1970 Sugar Bowl with ABC legends Chris Shenkel and Bud Wilkinson doing the call.

“About midway through the second half, Olivia said it looked like my good friend Jim Poole (a fantastic Rebel tight end) had his jersey on backwards,” Manning said. “Sure enough, I looked closely and the big numbers were on the front of Jim’s jersey. The little numbers, which were supposed to be on the front, were on the back.”

Turns out, Poole had suffered a first half neck injury, and Ole Miss trainer Doc Knight had taken his jersey and shoulder pads off to massage the neck at halftime. When they put Poole’s jersey back on, it was on backwards.

Turns out, Poole played that second half with fractured vertebrae in his neck. Back then, you just took a few aspirin and went back in – until they carried you off. So what will they be saying about this New Year’s Day Sugar Bowl in 56 years? That will be 2082.

After more than five years in office, Gov. Tate Reeves first exercised his power to grant executive clemency earlier this month when he ordered the release of Marcus Taylor, who had been wrongly sentenced to five years longer than the maximum sentence for his charge.

Now, he has exercised that constitutional authority again, this time to free Taylor’s twin brother Maurice. 

On Dec. 31, Reeves signed Executive Order 1591, directing the Mississippi Department of Corrections to release Maurice Taylor within five days. 

“A couple of weeks ago, my office was contacted for the first time by Maurice Taylor’s post-conviction counsel and provided a copy of Mr. Taylor’s indictment, plea petition, sentencing order, transcript of the sentencing hearing and other documents from the Circuit Court file,” Reeves posted on his X account Wednesday. “These documents confirm that, like his brother, Maurice Taylor received a sentence more than three times longer than allowed under Mississippi law.” 

In February 2015, Maurice Taylor pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to sell a controlled substance, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of five years. However, the Choctaw County Circuit Court in its judgment sentenced him to 20 years in MDOC custody with five suspended, a sentence 10 years longer than the maximum for his offense. 

According to court papers, the sentencing judgment misidentified the offense as business burglary and imposed an illegal sentence. In 2016, the trial court entered a corrected judgment identifying the proper offense but failed to correct the sentence.

Reeves’ executive order notes that Taylor began serving his sentence on March 6, 2014, meaning that he has, to date, served more than 11 years for an offense that carried a maximum sentence of five, thus constituting a “miscarriage of justice.”

“When justice is denied to even one Mississippian, it is denied to us all,” Reeves said.

Similarly, Marcus Taylor, who was indicted with his brother, was convicted in 2015 for a drug sale charge that was meant to have a five-year maximum sentence. Instead, he received 15 years. 

But unlike his brother, the Mississippi Court of Appeals voted 8-2 to release him. The attorney general’s office asked the court to vacate its decision after Reeves’ granted the 43-year-old clemency. It refused. The attorney general’s office is appealing that decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court. 

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has purchased a new building in Southaven to boost its computing power. 

This is the tech company’s latest expansion into Mississippi. The property at 2400 Stateline Road is a short drive from xAI’s natural gas power plant that the company bought in July 2025. The former Duke Power plant will power xAI’s two data centers across the state line in Memphis. 

According to property records, MZX Tech, an LLC associated with xAI, purchased the property on Dec. 23.

“xAI has bought a third building called MACROHADRR,” Elon Musk wrote on Tuesday in a tweet on X, formerly known as Twitter. Musk added that the building would expand the company’s computing power to almost 2 gigawatts. 

The company has not said what it plans for the warehouse. However, The Information, a tech publication, reported that the building will be used as a data center.

If true, this would bring the total number of data center projects in Mississippi to five. 

xAI’s power plant already faces community pushback. Residents of Southaven have raised concerns about noise levels and environmental concerns. A petition by a local group, Safe and Sound Coalition, calls for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the city to end all xAI operations. It has over 700 signatures. The group plans to speak at the next Southaven Board of Aldermen meeting on Jan. 6.  

For the next year, Mississippi will take part in America250, a variety of projects, initiatives and programming aimed at unifying Americans while venerating the country’s history, culture and ideas in celebration of the country’s upcoming 250th birthday.

Nancy Carpenter, America250 Mississippi’s development director, said that these celebrations are open to every American, regardless of their background or beliefs. 

“I know that right now everybody does not love each other, everybody does not get along, and my hope and prayer is that things can change and will change for the betterment of our state and our country,” she said.

The Mississippi Legislature established the America250 Mississippi Commission in 2023, and celebrations began in July of 2025. The commission is co-chaired by Elee Reeves, wife of Gov. Tate Reves; Lynn Hosemann, wife of Lt. Gov Delbert Hosemann; and Jolynn White, wife of House Speaker Jason White. The commission is working with state agencies such as Visit Mississippi, the Mississippi Arts Commission and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

There are local and national events and initiatives in celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Mississippi has been part of past and ongoing national events, including America250’s Our American Story airstream, the Great American State Fair contest and Flag Sojourn 250. 

Sarah Campbell, director of the state’s Archives and History  programs and communication division, said there will be programming highlighting the state’s contributions to America, including its roles in Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement.

“When we talk about a nation founded on the principles of liberty and justice, Mississippi has been part of defining what that means, so that’s the part of the story that we’re telling,” Campbell said.

Mississippi began its America250 celebrations in July with a nationalization ceremony at the Two Mississippi Museums. An exhibit called “Mississippi Made,” which will showcase artifacts that tell of Mississippi’s contributions across various fields, will debut at the museums in 2026.

Archives and History also received a grant for the First Oval Office Project, to install a replica of George Washington’s tent from the Revolutionary War at the Old Capitol Museum. This project is in partnership with the Museum of the American Revolution.

Vendors and communities are encouraged to submit their events to be featured on the America250 Mississippi Commission’s website.

The America250 Mississippi Grant Program, funded by the Mississippi Legislature, gives communities the opportunity to join the festivities. The commission wants to ensure every corner of the state is included.

There are three types of grants depending on the scale of the project: mini grants, program grants and legacy grants. The Mississippi Humanities Council administers the grant program. 

Carol Andersen, assistant director of the Humanities Council, said the response to the request for proposals has been “robust.”

Andersen said, “They (grant proposals) have come from across the state. They have come from the tiniest organizations up to the largest nonprofit entities functioning in our state.”

Information about requirements and deadlines is on the Mississippi Humanities Council’s website.

The Mississippi Arts Commission, as part of the celebration, also is offering a public art grant. 

Robert Luckett is a history professor and director of the Margaret Walker Center and Civil Rights Education Center at Jackson State University. The Margaret Walker Center is planning to commemorate the holiday with a 60th anniversary celebration of Margaret Walker’s novel, “Jubilee.”  The historical novel tells the story of a biracial slave during the Civil War. Luckett also said the Margaret Walker Center is applying for an America250 program grant.

Luckett believes that it’s important to tell the full story of Mississippi’s history.

“We have stories to tell. We have powerful, wonderful stories to tell, to lift up, to celebrate, of people who risked and gave everything in the name of this nation and in the name of what has been built up over the last 250 years,” he said.

“And that is something we should be very proud of, but we also cannot tell those stories without talking about what they were up against.”

You might be interested in what were Mississippi Today’s 10 most-read sports stories of 2025. I was. Some were surprises, some not.

From the considerable feedback received, the most surprising column that didn’t make the top 10 was the one I wrote about Jake Mangum just prior to the Major League season.

Read my most-read stories of 2025 below and sign up for my monthly newsletter Crooked Letter Sports.

Will Warren’s story: From 10th grade bench warmer to NY Yankees starter

Mississippi native and New York Yankees pitcher Will Warren’s incredible story is one of waiting your turn and never giving up.

Egg Bowl week begins as Kiffin’s run at Ole Miss appears to be at end

“I have no clue what will happen Friday in Starkville and then Saturday in Oxford when Lane Kiffin’s decision is supposed to come, but clearly Kiffin already has worn out his welcome with a huge segment of Ole Miss faithful,” wrote Rick Cleveland.

Ty Grisham, the author’s son, discusses Brian O’Connor’s move to Mississippi State

Ty Grisham, the author John Grisham’s son, played baseball for Brian O’Connor, the new Mississippi State baseball coach, at University of Virginia. Here’s what he says about State’s hire.

D.D. Lewis: He was a football hero, but he was much more than that

D.D. Lewis, one of Mississippi State’s best ever players and a Dallas Cowboys legend, died at age 79. Cleveland recounts his close friendship with Lewis.

For Rebels’ new boss Pete Golding, the coaching bug first bit at Delta State

The new head football coach at Ole Miss, Pete Golding, is known as a strong recruiter who builds bonds with high school coaches and prospective players.

Chris Lemonis fired, national search underway for Mississippi State baseball

Not quite four years after guiding Mississippi State to a baseball national championship, head coach Chis Lemonis was fired.

Jearld Baylis, dead at 62, was a nightmare for USM opponents

Jearld Baylis, who died at the age of 62, played nose tackle at Southern Miss in the 1980s — with the emphasis very much on the word “tackle.”

Ready or not, Mississippi State and Southern Miss will tee it up Saturday at the Rock

“This is an intriguing way to start the football season,” wrote Cleveland. “We’ve got two in-state rivals who used to play every season but now get together much less frequently. We’ve got two teams with totally revamped rosters. Even the most diehard of Bulldog and Golden Eagle fans will need a program to know who is who.”

Funny, smart and so very athletic, Bobby Ray Franklin was a winner

Clarksdale native and Ole Miss great Bobby Ray Franklin died at age 88 in Senatobia. Cleveland describes him as a “gentleman and a winner.”

Opinion: Chris Lemonis had at least earned the right to finish season

Mississippi State University baseball coach Chris Lemonis won the first national championship in State history four years ago. That championship should have earned Lemonis the right finish the season, Cleveland said.

NEW ORLEANS – The similarities of these two Sugar Bowl head coaches are many. Georgia football coach Kirby Smart’s dad was a high school football coach. So is Ole Miss coach Pete Golding’s daddy.

Smart played defensive back, safety to be exact. So did Golding.

When both Smart and Golding finished their playing days, they hired on as graduate assistant coaches at their alma maters.

Following those apprenticeships both Smart and Golding cut their coaching teeth in the Division II Gulf South Conference, Kirby at Valdosta State and Pete at his alma mater, Delta State.

Smart worked as a defensive coordinator for Nick “He of Seven National Championships” Saban at Alabama. So did Golding.

In this age of high powered, spread-the-field offenses when most head coaches worked first as assistant coaches on that side of the ball, both Smart and Golding rose through the coaching ranks on the defensive side. 

Both Smart, 50, and Golding, 41, are sons of the South and speak with decidedly Southern accents. Both tend to become very animated when they talk.

And that’s where similarities pretty much end. Smart has won 117 games and two national championships. Golding has won one game, period.

The Ole Miss hope – some would say, the Ole Miss dream – is that Golding can produce anywhere near similar success in Oxford, Mississippi, as Smart has in Athens, Georgia. And, yes, those similar backgrounds are part of what Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter had in mind when he  promoted Golding to head coach on Nov. 30 after Lane Kiffin flew the Ole Miss coop.

“Similar backgrounds, similar pedigree, no doubt about it,” Carter said. “Their journey has been very similar. Man, we’d love to have some of that same success Georgia has had.”

Of course, they would. That would mean four SEC Championships and two national titles over the next decade.

But Carter had far more than that in mind when he elevated Golding, as he explained Tuesday: “I just think Pete is uniquely fit for Ole Miss. I think that’s what I have learned over the last three years. Man, Pete Golding loves Ole Miss. His family loves this place. … When you see him in that building and you hear him around the players and the respect they have for him, all those things are great. The fact that he wants to build something really special here at Ole Miss. That makes a ton of difference, too.”

That his career path mirrors that of Smart is far from lost on Golding. Where Smart is concerned, Golding has been a long-time fan, going back to Golding’s first year as a graduate coach at Delta State. Smart was then Saban’s defensive coordinator at Alabama helping win national championships.

“I remember studying their tape, trying to figure out what they were doing and how we could increase our package and do it better,” Golding said. “I was coaching in DII in the Gulf South Conference, and I appreciated that Coach Smart had been at Valdosta State. It was a respect factor based on where he had come from and how he did it. And then, obviously, I worked with a lot of guys who worked with him, so that I felt I knew him better than I really did.”

That respect, Smart said Tuesday, is mutual.

“Pete worked his way up through the ranks, very similar to how I did,” Smart said. “He’s coached under sone really good coaches, been part of of some really good defensive staffs. … I don’t know Pete that well, I just know him through other people. I’m happy for him. I’m happy when someone that works as hard as he did and worked his way up and dedicated himself to being a position coach, a coordinator and then a head coach. That’s the way it is supposed to be. That’s the way it is supposed to go if you’re able to do it. He’s done it.”

Listen to Smart and Golding and you get a sense that, regardless of how little they know one another, they are part of a fraternity of defense-minded coaches. They clearly take great pride in having built their careers on that side of the ball. They are from the school of football thought that while offense sells tickets, defense wins championships. Golding says its only natural that defensive coaches pull for each other. He remembers thinking earlier in his career that all the head coaching jobs were going to the latest hot-shot offensive coordinators.

“I think any time you are a defensive coach and you see a defensive coach get a head job, you pull for him,” Golding said. “You want him to have success and create more opportunities for defensive guys to become head coaches. I don’t know about a fraternity but I do think we kind of pull for each other.”

While the mutual admiration society will take about a four-hour break on the first night of 2026, the guess here is that the shared respect will extend far beyond. 

READ ALSO: Sugar Bowl notes: Kewan Lacy says he and his shoulder ‘ready to go’

NEW ORLEANS – Notes and quotes from the Sugar Bowl:

The biggest news of Sugar Bowl Media Day Tuesday was splendid news for Ole Miss football fans.

All American running back Kewan Lacy pronounced himself “ready to go” for Thursday’s Sugar Bowl match with Georgia, and his coach, Pete Golding, confirmed Lacy’s status, saying, “I couldn’t agree with him more!”

“I am excited to watch (Lacy) got out and play and play really well,” Golding said.

Lacy has been one of the nation’s top rushers all season long for the 12-1 Rebels, running for 1,366 yards and 21 touchdowns on 273 carries. He suffered a shoulder injury in the Rebels’ first-round playoff victory over Tulane, which he called “just a little stinger in my AC joint.”

Georgia held Lacy to a season low 31 yards on 12 carries in the Bulldogs’ 43-35 victory at Athens, Georgia, on Oct. 18. Lacy did score two touchdowns, but Georgia, which never punted, came from behind in the fourth quarter to hand the Rebels their only regular season defeat.

Asked to compare Georgia’s defense with others he has faced, Lacy said, “Yeah. I’ll just say, they have more, bigger people.”

“But it’s football at the end of the day and it’s not about size,” Lacy said. “It’s about doing our job. I just feel like if we just go out and do our job, it’s going to be a great outcome.”

***

Meanwhile, Georgia’s injury report was mixed. The Bulldogs will be without starting defensive end Gabe Harris, who suffers from a painful turf toe injury. But Georgia will welcome the return of wide receiver Colbie Young, who hasn’t played since suffering a broken leg in the previous Ole Miss game. Young caught one 36-yard pass against the Rebels before the injury. He had caught 23 passes for 336 yards over the first seven games.

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During the Georgia portion of the Sugar Bowl Media Day, all the Georgia defensive linemen were gathered at two tables. Even when they were sitting, they were huge. They made big tables look small. During the Ole Miss portion of the two press conferences, Georgia’s physical size and strength came up over and over.

“Yeah, it’s Georgia,” Trinidad Chambliss said. “They’re going to have huge guys. They’re going to have five stars; they’re going to have four stars that are hungry. Their defensive line is always stacked with dudes that can be in the NFL any given day.”

Asked about Georgia’s defensive size, Golding smiled. “First of all, they’re big human beings,” he said. “They’re really strong, really powerful. … They got a very good pressure package to create some one-on-ones for those big guys. I think you really see their explosion and power come up when they get the one-on-one matchups. … They’ve always been very talented up front and well-coached and they do a good job with their plans. It will be tough for us.”

•••

The Trinidad Chambliss story – from Division II Ferris State to the Sugar Bowl – has become a national story, but there’s another poignant DII story on the Ole Miss team. Safety Wydette Williams began his college career at Delta State. Three years ago, he was more concerned with Gulf States Conference rival Valdosta State. Now he’s going against the Georgia Bulldogs in the Division I playoff quarterfinals and the Sugar Bowl.

Asked if he ever dreamed of playing in a game this big when he was at Delta State, Williams answered, “Yes, I always thought of it, at Delta State and even when I was a little kid. At Delta State, my biggest thing was to stay where my feet were, get better at what I was doing and keep grinding.”

Williams shares that Delta State background with his new head coach. Of Pete Golding, Williams said, “He knows where he comes from and I know where I come from. We’re connected like that.”

EAD ALSO: Smart vs, Golding: More similarities than differences