If we rewind to last year, when Florida took on Ole Miss, let’s just say tensions were high between Gator fans and Rebel fans. Florida had fired The Man in the Black Polo and was still in a full-throttle pursuit of Lane Kiffin, who was still with Ole Miss at the time. The running gag for Gator fans is that they traveled to Oxford last year to see their new coach.
In the end, the winner of the Lane Kiffin Bowl was neither, as Kiffin wound up departing for LSU.
And so, because of those warts from last year, fans on social media are opting for peace between the two fan bases rather than another all-out war.
Florida and Ole Miss are less chippy at each other compared to last year
If you hop on X/Twitter, look up the hashtag #RespectOff. Essentially, compared to the back-and-forth insults Auburn fans tried to engage with, Ole Miss fans are taking a more amicable tone this week.
Part of it is that they are probably exhausted after the week they had with LSU. Part of it is because neither fan base has a distinct reason to feel 100% confident in a win this Saturday.
Florida is the favorite, and there are real reasons why the Gators can win this Saturday off the backs of their own explosive offense, but the thought of Trinidad Chambliss marching up and down on an extremely suspect Gator defense creates the possibility of a game where the first team to punt is going to be the loser.
And the reality is that Florida fans and Ole Miss fans don’t have as much of a historical beef as compared to plenty of other Florida rivals. Don’t get it twisted, Ole Miss is etched into Florida’s lore. Tim Tebow’s “The Promise” came after a loss to Ole Miss. The 2015 win with Will Grier had Florida fans dreaming of what was possible, and even the 2024 win was the catalyst to retain The Man in the Black Polo and knock Ole Miss out of the playoffs. But there is not the extended hatred compared to others.
We will say this, however: this feeling Ole Miss fans have ties right into one of the narratives we floated in the offseason when we picked Florida to win. We said last month we thought Florida would win, and at the time we said:
“Combined with this game at home, and the fact that Ole Miss has to go through the circus of the LSU game the week before, we are taking our swing on the Gators.”
If you are Ole Miss, this game has trap potential all over it.
And if Ole Miss doesn’t have the same energy this week, we respect that.
Add us as a preferred source on Google