College Football Playoff season is here, which means TV executives are thrilled, and teams are discovering that the sport is basically a long-running sequel series.
Two of the four first-round games are rematches from the 2025 regular season, because college football loves nothing more than pretending the past never happened while making you replay it anyway.
One of those reruns features Ole Miss, a team now fluent in déjà vu.
A week from Saturday, the No. 6 Rebels (11-1) get to host No. 11 Tulane (11-2) at 2:30 p.m. on TNT/HBO Max. Yes, it’s the second time these two have crowded into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in just over three months. And yes, it suggests the schedule has officially become a circle.
If Ole Miss wins, the fun continues with yet another possible rematch. The winner advances to face 3 Seed Georgia (12-1) in the Sugar Bowl on January 1.
If that happens, the Rebs get a chance to revisit their only loss of the season.
College football loves its themes, and apparently this year’s theme is “Remember that team you already played? Great, do it again.”
The first meeting with Tulane looked nothing like a playoff thriller.
Ole Miss crushed the Green Wave by 35 points, turned Jake Retzlaff into a running back by necessity, and treated the game like early-season homework.
But this time the stakes are higher, which is exactly what every coach says before someone wins by 30 again.
Pete Golding, now the Rebs’ new head coach, knows the lore of second meetings. At Alabama he dealt with one of the most famous replays of modern football — the 2021 SEC Championship win over Georgia followed by the national championship loss to those same Bulldogs.
Dominating one month, losing by 15 the next. A reminder that rematches are nature’s way of telling coaches they are not in charge.
Golding Leans on Old Lessons
Golding sounded like someone who understands how fast things change.
“But the big thing now, man, that feels like years ago at this point,” Golding said Sunday. “It was early in the season, and they played really well lately… got some confidence in winning the conference championship.”
Translation: Please stop asking me about the 35-point win. That was practically ancient history in football years, which function like dog years but with more transfer portal stress.
Golding also noted Tulane’s recent knack for forcing turnovers.
As he put it, the Rebs “are going to have our work cut out for us,” which is coach-speak for: that first game probably won’t repeat itself, even if he’d love it to.
His experience at Alabama taught him that second meetings expose everything.
“You can’t get away from who you are,” he said, explaining that the staff has to study what Tulane “didn’t take advantage of” last time and prepare for what they “come back with.”
In the first matchup, Ole Miss rolled to 548 yards of offense and five touchdowns.
Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss delivered 307 passing yards and two touchdowns, then added a casual 112 rushing yards for good measure. Chambliss basically played two positions at once, which tends to brighten the scoreboard.
Running back Kewan Lacy punched in two touchdowns, helping the Rebels pile up 241 total rushing yards against the Green Wave.
It was the kind of day that makes offensive staffs nod proudly and defensive staffs wonder if the bus can leave early.
Tulane hopes sequel isn’t a rerun
While Golding tries to repeat success, Tulane coach Jon Sumrall is trying to keep his final game from turning into a farewell roast.
His next job is waiting for him in Gainesville, but first he has to leave New Orleans with dignity.
“We played absolutely rotten and we coached rotten in game one,” Sumrall said. “We need to give them a better game.”
It’s refreshing honesty in a sport where most coaches claim they played “not quite our best.” Sumrall admitted Ole Miss “got dudes,” which is also refreshing accuracy.
His hope is that Tulane has become “a little more consistent” since the first meeting, even if the challenge is “real.”
If Tulane wants the rematch to be anything more than a documentary film about football humility, Retzlaff will need more than the 56 passing yards he posted in the first game. He completed five of 17 throws, which is the statistical version of shrugging.
He did lead the Green Wave in rushing that day with 51 yards. That’s great for him, less great for an offense that would prefer a quarterback throw to someone else eventually.
Tulane’s only touchdown came late in the fourth quarter from backup quarterback Anthony Brown-Stephens, which tells you everything about how the day went.
Rematches bring drama, even when they shouldn’t
So here we are: the Rebs walk back into a game they dominated once already, Tulane promises to be better, and Georgia waits on the other side like a sequel no one asked for but everyone saw coming.
The College Football Playoff loves rematches because they create storylines, even when the first meeting answered most of the questions.
But that is the charm of this new format. You get the same teams, the same stadium, and a completely different game.
Coaches pretend they hate it. Secretly, they know rematches fuel careers, create pressure, and make the sport feel like a long-running drama that refuses to end.
And now Ole Miss gets to decide whether this next chapter is a repeat or something entirely new.
Key takeaways
- Ole Miss faces Tulane in a CFP rematch, with a potential second rematch against Georgia looming.
- Pete Golding draws on Alabama experience to prepare for the unpredictability of second meetings.
- Tulane hopes improved consistency can erase a 35-point defeat from the first matchup.
