While the matchups against the Longhorns and Sooners might feel foreign to some Rebels fans, these programs do have some history against one another.
July 1 marks the first day the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners will officially be members of the Southeastern Conference, a day that will be exciting for not just their fans, but college football fans as a whole.
The SEC landscape is changing, and with that will comes the budding of new rivalries that you wouldn’t have thought possible just five years ago. Alas, the SEC will be more toxic than ever, and as college football fans, can you ask for anything more?
While the Ole Miss Rebels have rarely faced Oklahoma and Texas, it has happened in the not-so-distant past. Let’s take a look at the last time Ole Miss has matched up against these two teams.
Oklahoma — 1999
On a chilly New Year’s Eve in Shreveport, the Oklahoma Sooners and Ole Miss Rebels met for the first and only time in the 1999 Independence Bowl.
A battle of first-year head coaches David Cutcliffe and Bob Stoops also featured first-year offensive coordinator Mike Leach on the Oklahoma sideline. This game featured some familiar names as Josh Heupel (now Tennessee’s head coach) ran the show at quarterback for the Sooners.
The 1999 season was anything but fun for the Rebels as all of their losses that season were one-possession games, but they did have Deuce McCallister, and on that cold night in Shreveport, he definitely was loose.
Deuce had a monster game with 121 yards on the ground plus 55 yards receiving on three receptions. Quarterback Romaro Miller had a great first half where the Rebels held a 21-3 lead entering halftime.
Heupel led a fiery comeback in the second half, but the Rebel lead held at 27-25, giving them their third bowl win in a row and finishing 22nd in the polls.
The Sooners and Rebels will meet again in October at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the second act of what could turn out to be a nice little rivalry sooner rather than later.
Texas — 2013
The Longhorns and Rebels have met five times in their history, but in 2012, they saw their first meeting since 1925.
The home-and-home series between Texas was a very exciting endeavor for the Rebels as fans weren’t used to the team playing blue-blood competition that didn’t reside in the SEC.
In 2012, the Rebels got embarrassed in the Vaught, so in 2013, they decided to return the favor in Austin.
Jeff Scott had a monster game for the Rebels on the ground as the Longhorn defense had no answers for the potent Ole Miss rushing attack. Scott and quarterback Bo Wallace had the read option humming as they continued to gash the Horns up front all night.
Scott ended the night with 164 yards and a score. Wide receiver Donte Moncrief got in on the action as well with a touchdown catch, and the Rebels made a statement to the rest of the country that they could play with the big boys.
The Longhorns in the 2010s were not the Longhorns of the Vince Young era, as they were not built to stop the run. The Rebels exploited that weakness and had a field day on the ground.
While this win looked good on paper, the Rebels went into Tuscaloosa the next week and got beat 25-0 to slow some of that momentum.
The 2013 Rebels were similar to the 1999 Rebels in the fact that they lost a lot of close ballgames to some talented teams. The Rebels would go on to beat Georgia Tech in the Music City Bowl to finish the year 8-5.
Ole Miss won’t play Texas for the next couple of years, but the reinstatement of this game should be fun for both fan bases to travel and enjoy two of the top towns for college football.
