The 20 Most Devastating Ole Miss Football Losses Since 2000

1. LSU 17, Ole Miss 14 — November 22, 2003

There may never have been a regular-season football game in modern Ole Miss history with more riding on it.

Eli Manning was a senior. Ole Miss entered the game 8-2 overall and 6-0 in the SEC. LSU arrived in Oxford ranked No. 3 in the country. A win would have given Ole Miss control of the SEC West and put the Rebels on the doorstep of their first appearance in the SEC Championship Game.

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium was packed with what was then a stadium-record 62,552 fans.

Ole Miss trailed 17-7 before Manning led a fourth-quarter touchdown drive to make it 17-14. The Rebels then moved into position for Jonathan Nichols, one of the best kickers in college football, to attempt a 36-yard field goal that would have tied the game.

He missed wide right.

Ole Miss got another opportunity, but LSU held on.

The Tigers won the SEC West, then the SEC Championship and eventually a share of the national championship.

Ole Miss finished 10-3.

It remains impossible not to wonder what might have happened if that kick had gone through — or if Ole Miss had found three more points somewhere during the afternoon.

For an entire generation of Rebel fans, LSU 2003 remains the one that got away.

2. Auburn 35, Ole Miss 31 — November 1, 2014

Even people who haven't watched the replay in years can probably still see the play.

Ole Miss was ranked No. 4 in the country and hosting No. 3 Auburn in a game with enormous SEC and national championship implications.

The Rebels had already beaten Alabama that season and spent part of October ranked No. 3 in the country. Despite a 10-7 loss at LSU the previous week, everything was still in front of them.

Trailing Auburn 35-31 late in the fourth quarter, Ole Miss drove toward the winning touchdown.

Bo Wallace found Laquon Treadwell near the goal line. Treadwell fought toward the end zone and initially appeared to score the touchdown that would put Ole Miss ahead.

Instead, Treadwell suffered a devastating leg injury while being tackled. Upon review, officials determined he had fumbled before crossing the goal line. Auburn recovered.

Touchdown erased.

Game essentially over.

National championship aspirations severely damaged.

And one of the best players on the Ole Miss roster was lying injured in the end zone.

There have been bigger blowouts and stranger losses.

Few have ever packed so much misery into a single play.

3. Arkansas 53, Ole Miss 52 — November 7, 2015

Ole Miss fans don't even need the score.

Just say:

Fourth-and-25.

The Rebels entered November still very much alive in the SEC West race. After beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa earlier in the season, Ole Miss controlled a path that could still take it to Atlanta.

Then came Arkansas.

The game went to overtime tied 45-45.

Ole Miss scored first to take a 52-45 lead. Arkansas eventually faced fourth-and-25.

Quarterback Brandon Allen completed a pass well short of the first-down marker to Hunter Henry. As Henry was being tackled, he desperately threw the ball backward.

The ball bounced.

Alex Collins picked it up.

He ran.

And somehow Arkansas gained the first down.

Even that wasn't enough pain.

Arkansas scored, then went for two. Ole Miss appeared to stop Allen, but a facemask penalty gave the Razorbacks another opportunity.

Allen scored on the next attempt.

Arkansas 53. Ole Miss 52.

One bizarre play had helped rip away Ole Miss' chance to control the SEC West race.

There are losses.

And then there are plays that become shorthand for suffering.

Fourth-and-25 may be the ultimate example in Ole Miss history.

4. Miami 31, Ole Miss 27 — January 8, 2026 — Fiesta Bowl/CFP Semifinal

This one is still fresh enough to hurt.

Ole Miss had already produced arguably the greatest season in the modern history of the program.

The Rebels had reached the College Football Playoff semifinal and were one victory from playing for a national championship.

And with 3:18 remaining against Miami, Ole Miss led 27-24 after Trinidad Chambliss found Dae'Quan Wright for a touchdown and the Rebels converted the two-point conversion.

One defensive stop.

That's all Ole Miss needed.

Instead, Miami drove 75 yards in 16 plays.

With just 18 seconds remaining, Carson Beck scrambled for the touchdown that gave Miami a 31-27 lead.

Ole Miss managed to move into Miami territory one last time, but the final pass into the end zone fell incomplete.

Season over.

National championship dream over.

Ole Miss finished 13-2 after reaching a place the program had never reached in the playoff era. But anyone who watched that final Miami drive knows how close Ole Miss came to playing for the national championship.

Eighteen seconds.

That is what separated Ole Miss from having one final opportunity to win it all.

5. Florida 24, Ole Miss 17 — November 23, 2024

This loss hurts more when viewed through the lens of what Ole Miss had assembled in 2024.

The roster was loaded with veteran talent. Jaxson Dart was at quarterback. Ole Miss had invested heavily in building a team capable of making the newly expanded College Football Playoff.

By late November, the path was sitting directly in front of the Rebels.

Beat Florida.

Beat Mississippi State.

Make a compelling case for the playoff.

Instead, Ole Miss went to Gainesville and lost 24-17.

The Rebels actually outgained Florida by more than 100 yards. But they went 0-for-3 in the red zone and committed three turnovers. Dart threw interceptions on Ole Miss' final two possessions.

That made the defeat even harder to understand.

This wasn't a game in which Florida simply overwhelmed Ole Miss.

The Rebels repeatedly had opportunities to take control and didn't.

Ole Miss beat Mississippi State the following week and ultimately finished 9-3, outside the playoff.

For a team many fans believed was talented enough to make a serious postseason run, Gainesville became the place where that opportunity disappeared.

6. LSU 29, Ole Miss 26 — October 12, 2024

The Florida loss ultimately delivered the final blow to Ole Miss' playoff hopes.

But Baton Rouge may have been just as painful.

Ole Miss led LSU virtually the entire night.

The Rebels had multiple opportunities to put the game away, including a dropped potential touchdown, a failed fourth-down opportunity near the LSU goal line and a missed short field goal.

Still, Ole Miss led 23-16 late.

LSU faced fourth-and-5 with the game on the line.

Garrett Nussmeier found Aaron Anderson for a 23-yard touchdown with 27 seconds remaining.

Tie game.

Overtime.

Ole Miss kicked a field goal on its possession.

LSU needed one play.

Nussmeier hit Kyren Lacy for a 25-yard touchdown.

Game over.

Ole Miss had gone into one of college football's most difficult environments and led almost the entire game — only to leave without a victory.

Those are sometimes the games that hurt the most.

Not because you never had a chance.

Because you had too many chances.

7. Kentucky 20, Ole Miss 17 — September 28, 2024

In hindsight, this may have been the loss that changed everything about the 2024 season.

Ole Miss was 4-0 and ranked No. 5. The Rebels had spent the first month of the season destroying opponents and entered SEC play with national championship expectations.

Kentucky came to Oxford as a significant underdog.

And completely changed the rhythm of the game.

Ole Miss led 17-13 late in the fourth quarter before Kentucky put together an 83-yard touchdown drive to take a 20-17 lead with 2:25 remaining.

The Rebels had one final opportunity.

They moved into field-goal range, but Caden Davis' long attempt missed.

For a roster built to contend nationally, losing the SEC opener at home to Kentucky was almost impossible to envision entering the season.

And when Ole Miss eventually finished outside the College Football Playoff, that September afternoon became even more painful.

If the Rebels win this game, the entire conversation surrounding the end of the 2024 season could have been different.

8. LSU 10, Ole Miss 7 — October 25, 2014

The 2014 Rebels had already beaten Alabama.

They had already climbed into the national championship conversation.

Ole Miss went into Tiger Stadium ranked among the nation's elite teams and found itself locked in an old-fashioned defensive battle.

Ole Miss led 7-3 for much of the night.

LSU finally went ahead 10-7 late in the fourth quarter.

The Rebels still had an opportunity to tie or win the game, but the final possession ended without the points Ole Miss needed.

The loss ended Ole Miss' undefeated start and became the first crack in what had felt like a magical season.

A week later came Auburn.

Together, LSU and Auburn turned a season that had Ole Miss fans legitimately thinking national championship into one of the biggest what-might-have-been years in school history.

The Auburn loss may have been more traumatic.

But the pain started one Saturday night earlier in Death Valley.

9. Arkansas 58, Ole Miss 56 — November 3, 2001 — Seven Overtimes

Before there was fourth-and-25, Arkansas had already invented another form of torture for Ole Miss fans.

Seven overtimes.

At the time, Arkansas-Ole Miss became the longest game in major college football history.

Eli Manning and the Rebels matched Arkansas possession after possession, touchdown after touchdown.

Finally, in the seventh overtime, Arkansas scored and converted its required two-point attempt.

Manning answered with a touchdown pass to bring Ole Miss within 58-56.

The Rebels needed the two-point conversion to extend the game again.

Manning threw to tight end Doug Ziegler.

He was stopped approximately two yards short.

After seven overtimes and nearly four hours of football, that was it.

Ole Miss entered the game 6-1 and left 6-2.

The game became a college football classic.

That description has always been easier for everyone who wasn't wearing red and blue that night.

10. Florida 52, Ole Miss 28 — September 26, 2026

Unlike many games on this list, there wasn't one final play that broke Ole Miss hearts.

Florida simply beat Ole Miss.

Badly.

The Rebels entered Gainesville ranked No. 4 in the country and 3-0. Expectations remained enormous coming off the historic 2025 playoff run.

Florida was ranked No. 21.

Instead of another step toward a championship season, Ole Miss suffered a 52-28 defeat.

Pete Golding described the performance afterward as an "old-fashioned" beating, and it was difficult to argue with the description. Florida controlled the game and handed Ole Miss its first loss of the season.

Where this game ultimately belongs on a list like this will depend on what happens next.

If the 2026 Rebels rebound and accomplish something special, Gainesville may eventually look like an early-season correction.

If the loss becomes the turning point of the season, it will hurt considerably more.

Right now, though, for a fan base coming off a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance, seeing the No. 4 Rebels give up 52 points in Gainesville was stunning.

11. Alabama 48, Ole Miss 43 — September 17, 2016

For a while, it appeared Ole Miss was going to do something almost unimaginable.

Beat Alabama three consecutive years.

The Rebels jumped ahead of No. 1 Alabama 24-3 in Oxford.

Think about that.

After beating Alabama in 2014 and again in 2015, Ole Miss had built a three-touchdown lead over Nick Saban's top-ranked Crimson Tide.

Then everything turned.

Alabama returned a punt for a touchdown.

A fumble became another Alabama touchdown.

The Tide eventually built a 48-30 lead before Chad Kelly led a furious late rally that pulled Ole Miss within 48-43.

Ole Miss recovered an onside kick during the comeback and briefly made the impossible seem possible again.

But Alabama survived.

Kelly threw for 421 yards.

Ole Miss scored 43 points against the nation's No. 1 team.

And it still wasn't enough.

A 24-3 lead against Alabama with a chance to beat the Tide for a third straight season.

That is a difficult opportunity to ever completely forget.

12. Florida State 45, Ole Miss 34 — September 5, 2016

The 2016 season began with enormous expectations.

Ole Miss was ranked No. 11.

Florida State was No. 4.

The teams met in Orlando on Labor Day night in one of the biggest opening-week games in college football.

Ole Miss came out looking like a national championship contender.

The Rebels built a 28-6 lead.

Then the game completely reversed.

Florida State scored 33 unanswered points.

Ole Miss committed four turnovers.

A night that appeared ready to announce the Rebels as one of the best teams in the country instead became one of the largest blown opportunities of the Hugh Freeze era.

Final score:

Florida State 45.

Ole Miss 34.

Two weeks later Ole Miss would build another huge lead — 24-3 against Alabama — and lose that game as well.

The 2016 season never really recovered from those early missed opportunities.

13. Florida 38, Ole Miss 10 — October 3, 2015

This game deserves to be remembered separately from the Florida loss nine years later.

Ole Miss entered Gainesville ranked No. 3 in the country.

The Rebels were 4-0.

They had already gone into Tuscaloosa and beaten Alabama.

For perhaps the first time in generations, Ole Miss wasn't merely hoping to have a great season.

The Rebels were legitimately in the national championship conversation.

Then Florida scored the first 25 points.

Ole Miss never recovered.

The Gators won 38-10.

The loss didn't completely destroy Ole Miss' season — the Rebels would work their way back into SEC West contention — but it dramatically changed the national perception of the team and erased the undefeated start.

For fans who had spent the weeks after the Alabama victory dreaming bigger than ever, Gainesville provided an abrupt return to reality.

14. Memphis 37, Ole Miss 24 — October 17, 2015

Two weeks after the Florida loss, another punch arrived.

No. 12 Ole Miss traveled approximately 80 miles north to play No. 22 Memphis.

The Rebels scored the first 14 points.

Then Memphis scored 31 unanswered.

The Tigers won 37-24.

There is always extra pain attached to losing to an in-state or regional opponent that Ole Miss expects to beat.

But this was more than that.

The 2015 Rebels had already beaten Alabama. They were talented enough to win the Sugar Bowl later that season. They were still capable of reaching Atlanta.

Instead, they suffered their second loss in three games.

Ole Miss eventually recovered and entered November controlling a path toward the SEC West title.

Then Arkansas came to Oxford.

Which made the Memphis loss even more frustrating in retrospect.

The 2015 team was good enough to accomplish almost anything.

It simply couldn't avoid the losses that kept getting in its way.

15. South Carolina 16, Ole Miss 10 — September 24, 2009

Younger Ole Miss fans may not fully appreciate the expectations surrounding this team.

Ole Miss finished the 2008 season on a six-game winning streak, including a Cotton Bowl victory over Texas Tech.

Expectations for 2009 exploded.

By the time the Rebels traveled to South Carolina for a Thursday night game, Ole Miss was ranked No. 4 in the country — its highest ranking in almost four decades.

And then the offense disappeared.

South Carolina won 16-10.

Jevan Snead and the Ole Miss offense never found a rhythm, and a season that had begun with genuine national championship discussion suddenly felt very different.

The Rebels eventually finished 9-4 and won another Cotton Bowl.

That's a good season.

But it wasn't the season Ole Miss fans thought they might be watching when the Rebels entered Columbia ranked fourth in America.

Sometimes one game changes expectations immediately.

This was one of those games.

16. Jacksonville State 49, Ole Miss 48 — September 4, 2010

Some losses hurt because of what was at stake.

Others hurt because you can't believe they happened.

Jacksonville State belongs in the second category.

Ole Miss led 31-10 at halftime.

At home.

Against an FCS opponent.

The Gamecocks came back, forced overtime and eventually won 49-48 in double overtime when Coty Blanchard completed the winning two-point conversion.

The loss became an immediate national embarrassment.

There were no SEC Championship implications.

No playoff implications.

No national championship implications.

But ask Ole Miss fans who watched it, and many will still remember exactly how stunned they were.

For pure shock value, few losses of the past quarter-century can match Jacksonville State.

17. Mississippi State 21, Ole Miss 20 — November 28, 2019

The game itself had no championship implications.

Neither team was competing for the SEC West.

And yet there is absolutely no way this game can be omitted.

Ole Miss trailed 21-14 late but drove 82 yards for a touchdown with four seconds remaining.

Matt Corral found Elijah Moore for the score.

21-20.

Then came one of the strangest endings in Egg Bowl history.

Moore celebrated the touchdown by mimicking a dog urinating in the end zone.

Penalty.

The extra point was pushed back.

Luke Logan missed.

Mississippi State won 21-20.

The sequence immediately became one of the most infamous moments in the history of the rivalry.

Matt Luke was fired shortly afterward, and Ole Miss hired Lane Kiffin.

So perhaps the loss ultimately helped change the direction of the program.

That doesn't make watching the ending any less painful.

18. Alabama 27, Ole Miss 24 — October 13, 2007

The 2007 Rebels weren't competing for a championship.

But this ending deserves a place somewhere on the list simply because of the way Ole Miss lost.

Ole Miss led Alabama 24-17 entering the fourth quarter before the Crimson Tide rallied to take a 27-24 lead.

The Rebels still had one final chance.

With seconds remaining, Seth Adams completed a deep pass to Shay Hodge that appeared to give Ole Miss the ball near the Alabama goal line.

Vaught-Hemingway erupted.

Then came the review.

Officials ruled that Hodge had stepped out of bounds before coming back onto the field to catch the pass.

The completion was overturned.

Alabama took over.

Game over.

To make it worse, it was the third straight season Ole Miss had lost to Alabama by exactly three points.

Not every devastating loss needs championship stakes.

Sometimes all it takes is believing you've made the play to win — and then having it disappear.

19. Memphis 44, Ole Miss 34 — September 6, 2003

This is the forgotten loss from Ole Miss' great 2003 season.

And when you look back at how the year ended, it becomes more painful.

Ole Miss led Memphis 34-21 entering the fourth quarter.

Memphis then scored the final 23 points.

The biggest play was a 92-yard touchdown pass from Danny Wimprine to Tavarious Davis that put the Tigers ahead for good.

Final score:

Memphis 44.

Ole Miss 34.

The Rebels responded by winning their next six games and eventually finished 7-1 in the SEC.

Which raises an interesting question.

What if Ole Miss hadn't blown the Memphis game?

The LSU loss ultimately prevented Ole Miss from winning the SEC West, so Memphis did not determine the conference race.

But a 10-win regular season with Eli Manning could have become an 11-win regular season.

For one of the best Ole Miss teams of the modern era, losing to Memphis after leading by 13 in the fourth quarter remains a frustrating blemish.

20. Mississippi State 24, Ole Miss 22 — November 24, 2022

For much of 2022, Ole Miss appeared headed toward another special season.

The Rebels started 7-0.

They were 8-1 after beating Texas A&M.

Then the season unraveled.

Ole Miss lost 30-24 to Alabama.

Then 42-27 at Arkansas.

And finally came Mississippi State on Thanksgiving night in Oxford.

The Bulldogs won 24-22.

Ole Miss had an opportunity to tie the game late after scoring a touchdown, but the two-point conversion failed.

A team that had once been 7-0 finished the regular season 8-4.

Losing the Egg Bowl is painful under almost any circumstances.

Losing it at home to complete that kind of late-season collapse made this one particularly difficult.