There’s a certain old-school belief in the South that a man’s word still counts for something.
You shake hands, sign your name, and everybody goes home knowing where things stand. College football in 2026 keeps proving that belief belongs next to rotary phones and film study on VHS.
Wednesday brought official news that had already been whispered loudly for days. Princewill Umanmielen was gone from Ole Miss, headed south to Baton Rouge and officially signed with LSU.
The delay wasn’t drama. It was paperwork, a holiday weekend, and a 48-hour pause that felt longer because everyone already knew the ending.
Umanmielen didn’t sneak out in the night. He left through the front door with a contract, a buyout, and a reminder that signatures in modern college football are more like suggestions than promises.
Ole Miss gets about $550,000 in buyout money for his exit, stacking on roughly $400,000 owed after Devin Harper’s move to LSU last week. That’s real money. It’s just not loyalty.
On the field, Umanmielen wasn’t replaceable by vibes alone. He led the Rebels in sacks with nine, tackles for loss with 13, and finished with 44 total tackles.
He added an interception, a pass breakup, and 13 quarterback hurries for good measure. That’s production you circle on the stat sheet, underline twice, and hope doesn’t walk out the door.
It did anyway.
That’s where head coach Pete Golding enters the conversation, armed with a quote that’s aging quickly. At the Fiesta Bowl press conference, Golding said the final month of the season taught him that everyone is replaceable.
It wasn’t bravado. It was philosophy. Now it’s a challenge.
Replacing numbers is one thing. Replacing timing, familiarity, and comfort inside a system is another. The Rebels aren’t starting from scratch, but they’re also not pretending this is painless.
Suntarine Perkins is back for a final season in 2026 and offers the cleanest starting point. He finished just half a tackle for loss behind Umanmielen and chipped in 4.5 sacks. Perkins can rush, drop, and adjust. The real question is where Golding needs him most. Does he stay as a Swiss Army knife on the edge, or does he slide back into the linebacker room after T.J. Dottery’s exit to LSU?
Spring practice will answer that without saying a word.
Golding hasn’t waited around for answers. The portal work started quickly with commitments from Nevada EDGE Jonathan Maldonado and Oregon EDGE Blake Purchase.
Neither arrives with fireworks attached. Both arrive with experience.
Purchase played in 15 games for Oregon, finishing with 32 tackles, two sacks, and 4.5 tackles for loss. Those are rotation numbers, not replacement numbers.
Still, a spring under Golding and defensive line coach Randall Joyner can turn defined roles into useful production.
Maldonado brings a similar résumé from Nevada. He finished with 38 tackles, nine tackles for loss, and five sacks, second-best on the team. He’s active, disruptive, and comfortable chasing quarterbacks, which matters more than hype in January.
Then there’s Alabama transfer Jordan Renaud. His numbers won’t scare anyone at first glance. Eighteen tackles and 1.5 for loss in his third season don’t scream instant starter.
What they do suggest is upside in a familiar defensive language under Golding, who knows exactly how to deploy him.
Kam Franklin’s return stabilizes the other side of the line. Franklin took a real step forward in 2025 with 69 tackles, nine tackles for loss, and five sacks.
He tied Will Echoles for second-best sack total on the defense, and both are back. That matters when trying to spread pressure instead of forcing it from one spot.
On paper, Ole Miss isn’t panicking. The buyout money softens the blow. The depth chart looks workable. The portal remains open for tweaks. None of that erases the message sent when a player leaves after signing, even if the move is mostly lateral and expensive.
Umanmielen didn’t just change uniforms. He reinforced a reality that programs now plan for instead of fear.
Contracts have clauses. Clauses get triggered. Loyalty gets replaced by ledger lines.
Golding said everyone is replaceable. Now he gets to prove it.
The Portal Test Comes Fast
Ole Miss doesn’t have the luxury of waiting to see how this feels.
Spring practice will show whether replacing Umanmielen means one player stepping up or three players sharing the load. The math works either way. The trust has to follow.
This isn’t about bitterness. It’s about adaptation. Ole Miss appears positioned to survive the loss, maybe even improve around it.
The lesson isn’t subtle, though. In today’s game, signatures don’t end conversations. They start countdowns.
