The Ole Miss baseball team will be making the 739-mile journey from Swayze Field to Charles Schwab Stadium in Omaha for the second time in four years.
The Rebels defeated Auburn, 6-4 and 5-3, to win the Auburn Super Regionals and earn a ticket to the school’s seventh trip to the College World Series. Coach Mike Bianco, who has guided the Rebels since 2001, will be taking his third Rebel team to Omaha. Bianco now ties Tom Swayze for most trips to Omaha by a head coach in Ole Miss history.
Ole Miss played in Omaha in 1954, 1964, 1969, 1972, 2014 and 2022. In their 2022 visit to Omaha, the Rebels won their first ever CWS championship. Starting pitcher Hunter Elliott is the lone returning Rebel player from that championship team.
The Rebels take on North Carolina in their opening game either Friday or Saturday. Carolina is the fifth seed overall in the NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels finished second to Georgia Tech in the ACC regular season standings and fell to Tech in the conference tournament. This makes their 13th appearance in Omaha and second in three years. The Tar Heels have never won the CWS but finished runner up in both 2006 and 2007.
The Rebels (41-21) and Tar Heels (50-12) are in the same bracket with West Virginia (45-15) and Troy (38-30). West Virginia and Troy will be in Omaha for the first time.
Mississippi State's (43-19) season came to an end against No. 3 seed Georgia. Mississippi State fell in two slugfests, 13-12 and 11-9, as Georgia claimed the Athens Regionals. Georgia, returning to the CWS for the first time since 2008, won their lone CWS title in 1990. Georgia (51-12) is the highest seed left in the NCAA bracket as top seed UCLA and second seed Georgia Tech lost in Regional play. Georgia has won eight straight games and 19 of its last 20 contests. Georgia was 6-0 against MSU--three wins in Starkville, one at the SEC tournament and both games in Athens over the weekend. None of the games came easily for Georgia. Their margin of victory in those six games was only a total of 11 runs, and two of those wins came in extra innings. Georgia will meet Texas on their side of the CWS bracket.
Football
The Mississippi JUCO football teams will be playing ten regular season games instead of nine games for the first time in decades to allow each of the 14 schools to play five home games. The season begins Thursday, August 27, and runs through Thursday, October 29. The week after the final regular season games, only the Division champs from the South and the North will play in the championship game. The August 27 games have East Central at Northeast, Northwest at Jones, East Mississippi at Southwest, Coahoma at Gulf Coast, Holmes at Pearl River, Delta at Co-Lin, and Itawamba at Hinds.
The four-year schools' college football season gets started in Mississippi in 11 weeks. Mississippi Valley travels to Nichols State on Thursday, August 27, to open the season. Delta State opens on Saturday, August 29, at Northeastern State in Oklahoma while Jackson State plays Tennessee State in Nashville at Nissan Stadium that night. On September 3, Millsaps welcomes neighbor Belhaven in the Riverside Rumble. USM opens at home versus Alcorn on Saturday, September 5, while MSU hosts ULM that evening. Ole Miss opens in Nashville against Louisville on Sunday, Sept. 6.
Former Ole Miss offensive tackle Michael Oher and two former Mississippi State football coaches Mike Leach and Jackie Sherrill are on the 2026 College Football Hall of Fame ballot.
The College Football Playoffs announced first round action is on Friday, December 18, and continues Saturday, December 19. The quarter finals are played on Wednesday, December 30, and Friday, January 1. This will be the second season of the expanded playoffs.
