Ole Miss massively improved its 2026 season outlook last week when Trinidad Chambliss won his preliminary injunction hearing that’ll let him suit up next season.
That decision vaulted the Rebels to the top of many way-too-early top 25 rankings and for good reason. Chambliss showed he’s one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC, if not the entire nation.
But the Rebels’ success may depend more on the play of the guy standing next to Chambliss in the Rebels’ backfield.
Kewan Lacy is set to return to Ole Miss next season as, according to CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford, “college football’s most potent running back.”
Crawford compiled a list of the 10 offenses he believes will be most explosive in the 2026 season. He listed Ole Miss as the No. 9 offense on the list.
From Missouri Backup to All-American
Lacy’s rise has been anything but linear. He arrived at Missouri as a three‑star prospect in the 2024 class and spent most of his freshman year buried behind veterans Nate Noel and Marcus Carroll. His touches came late in games, long after the outcome was decided. Twenty‑three carries, 104 yards, and a couple of receptions were all he had to show for it.
The transfer to Ole Miss changed everything.
Once he landed in Oxford, Lacy immediately looked like a different player.
He opened the 2025 season with back‑to‑back 100‑yard games against Georgia State and Kentucky, and that early surge never really slowed. By the end of the year, he had piled up 1,567 rushing yards, 24 touchdowns, and nearly 200 receiving yards. Seven 100‑yard games, a 224‑yard explosion against Florida, and a role that kept expanding as the Rebels kept winning.
His production helped push Ole Miss to a program‑best 13-2 record and a trip to the College Football Playoff semifinals. The postseason honors followed, First Team All‑SEC, multiple All‑America nods, and a spot as a Doak Walker Award finalist.
Rebels in 2026
That’s the version of Lacy returning in 2026: a proven workhorse in an offense that already knows how to use him. And with Chambliss cleared to play, the Rebels suddenly have one of the most dangerous backfield combinations in the country.
It’s no surprise the national media is circling Ole Miss again. A healthy Chambliss raises the ceiling. A returning Lacy raises the floor. Put them together, and the Rebels look like a team built to stay in the playoff conversation rather than just visit it.
“Retaining college football’s most potent running back also helps after Kewan Lacy stiff-armed pursuit by LSU and Kiffin to stay with the Rebels,” Crawford wrote. “He’s a 1,400-yard rusher who scored an SEC-leading 23 touchdowns last fall.”
The spotlight will follow Chambliss, but Lacy is the piece that makes the whole thing go .
That’s why Ole Miss enters 2026 with expectations that feel earned rather than imagined.
