OIe Miss football and USC have canceled their scheduled home-and-home. Here's why
OXFORD ― Ole Miss football's scheduled 2025 and 2026 home-and-home series against USC is canceled, athletic director Keith Carter told the Clarion Ledger on Tuesday.
Carter cast doubt on the viability of the Rebels' series with the Trojans at a fan event last week, saying that he expects the SEC to move to nine conference games.
"I think that's going to happen," Carter said. "I think you're seeing some of these more marquee matchups maybe coming off the books because of that. If you look at USC, they're going into the Big 10 and they're playing nine conference games now. I think that's probably in our future, too."
The SEC will stick with eight conference games in 2025, it has already announced. Texas AD Chris Del Conte recently said he expects the conference to look at moving to a nine-game schedule in 2026.
As of now, Ole Miss' scheduled nonconference opponents in 2025 are The Citadel, Wake Forest and Tulane. In 2026, the Rebels are slated to play Charlotte, Georgia State and Eastern Kentucky.
Under its current format of eight conference games, the SEC mandates that its members play a nonconference game against a power conference foe. Should that requirement remain in place, the Rebels would meet it in 2025 thanks to their matchup with Wake Forest, but would need to add a power conference opponent in 2026.
The series was officially added to the books in May of 2020, just a few months after Carter hired Lane Kiffin to lead the Ole Miss program. Kiffin was famously fired midway into his fourth season at USC.
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"We're actually a little bit on hold from a scheduling perspective right now until we know what the SEC schedule is gonna look like moving forward," Carter said.
David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.
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This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Why Ole Miss football canceled its scheduled series against USC
