Sometimes, a successful college football season comes down to something as simple as good luck.
Ole Miss had plenty of it in 2025, at least when it came to injuries.
The Rebels weren’t completely immune to the injury bug last season, but compared to what they’ve dealt with in 2026, they might as well have been.
That difference could help explain why this season hasn’t panned out the way last season did when Ole Miss made a run all the way to the College Football Playoff semifinals.
And the numbers are pretty eye-popping.
Through their first seven SEC games in 2025, the Rebels had a combined 13 players listed as out on the conference’s availability reports. That averages out to fewer than two players per game.
Through seven SEC games this season? That number is 57, an average of more than eight players per game.
That’s more than four times as many unavailable players.
To be clear, those aren’t 57 separate injuries. Those numbers represent the total player-game absences, meaning a player who missed multiple games is counted multiple times. The reports also don’t necessarily distinguish injuries from other reasons for being unavailable.
But the overall difference is impossible to ignore and it’s not just the number of players missing games. It’s when those absences have occurred.
Last season, Ole Miss had six players ruled out for its SEC opener against Kentucky. By the time the Rebels faced Oklahoma and South Carolina later in the season, nobody was listed as out.
In other words, the Rebels were getting healthier as the season progressed.
This year, the opposite has happened.
Ole Miss has had at least eight players listed as out for every SEC game since its loss to Florida. And while many of those early absences involved reserves, the injury bug has recently started biting some of the team’s most important players.
Running back Kewan Lacy and offensive lineman Patrick Kutas are among the latest casualties, leaving Ole Miss without two important pieces of an offense that has already struggled to establish consistency.
That’s a tough situation for any team, much less one trying to make a late-season push to get into the CFP. And it doesn’t take into account injuries that don’t keep players out of games, but limit their effectiveness. Like kicker Lucas Carneiro battling a foot injury and having his kickoff duties given to freshman Peter McStravick.
Of course, injuries can’t explain everything. They certainly don’t explain all of what happened in the Rebels’ embarrassing 42-7 loss to Georgia last Saturday.
Ole Miss allowed 295 rushing yards, surrendered five sacks and managed just 66 rushing yards of its own. Those aren’t numbers that can be blamed entirely on missing players.
There were plenty of healthy Rebels on the field who simply didn’t execute.
Pete Golding has talked repeatedly about the importance of consistency, saying after the Georgia game that championship teams find ways to perform at a high level week after week.
But it’s also fair to wonder how much harder that becomes when the lineup keeps changing.
Continuity matters, particularly along the offensive line and on defense, where communication and familiarity can be just as important as individual talent.
Last year’s Rebels had the luxury of developing that continuity down the stretch. This year’s team has increasingly been forced to plug holes and hope the replacements can hold things together.
That doesn’t excuse the mistakes, missed assignments or lack of physicality we’ve seen at times this season.
It does, however, provide some context for why the Rebels have struggled to put together complete performances.
Every successful football team needs some injury luck. The 2025 Rebels had it when they needed it most.
The 2026 Rebels haven’t been nearly as fortunate.
