News on the recruiting front has been slow the past couple of weeks for Ole Miss. Not that there aren’t plenty of things going on behind the scenes, but the Rebs seem to be in a holding pattern with some of their top prospects. For this week’s recruiting roundup, we’ll go over a couple of bullet points, then take a higher-level look at the Rebs’ 2025 class so far.
The next domino to fall?
First, Ole Miss appears set to receive a commitment from yet another highly-rated defensive back in the coming days, as Pensacola, Florida’s Ladarian Clardy prepares to announce his college pick. Pete Golding and Bryan Brown already have a pretty stout defensive backs class, with commitments in-hand from four-stars Keon Young, Cortez Thomas, and Maison Dunn, as well as Major Preston, a three-star DB with plenty of big offers. While a bit undersized at 5’11, 170-ish, Clardy would be the highest-ranked of the bunch, should he commit to Ole Miss on September 21. The Escambia HS safety is currently ranked as the #180 overall player in the country, as well as the #17 safety and the #29 player in Florida. On3 and 247 Sports both have multiple predictions logged for Clardy to commit to Ole Miss.
Early season visits
Last weekend, Ole Miss hosted a handful of visitors for the MTSU game, including current Rebel commits Andrew Maddox and Dillon Alfred. Other notable visitors included:
- Tyler Lockhart, a four-star linebacker from Winona HS long thought to be headed to Mississippi State or Auburn. Given the Rebs’ continued defensive improvements, and not much to show on the field so far for the Bulldogs or the Tigers, Pete Golding might be making a real push to get in the game for Lockhart. The 6’1, 205 lb Lockhart is the #5 player in Mississippi, according to On3’s consensus rankings.
- Mario Nash, a four-star offensive lineman from Kemper County HS in De Kalb, MS, currently a Mississippi State commit. Currently ranked as the #9 player in the Magnolia State, Nash is another player who might look the Rebels’ way if Mississippi State continues to look mediocre this year. 247 Sports Ole Miss reporter David Johnson actually logged an official prediction for Nash to ultimately flip to the Rebs, but we’ll wait for some other recruiting analysts to weigh in before we get too excited about that. Nash would be the highest-ranked offensive lineman in the Rebs’ 2025 class.
- Tony Mitchell, a former Alabama safety, now at EMCC. While Ole Miss is set to bring in a solid crop of freshmen defensive backs, the team also loses several of its top DBs this year, meaning Pete Golding and co. will be looking to the portal, and in this case, the JUCO ranks, to provide a couple of veteran pieces.
- Class of 2026 defensive lineman JaReylan McCoy, a Tupelo HS product and likely the top DL prospect in the state for his class. McCoy is listed at 6’6.5, 245, and already sports a pretty wild offer list.
Mississippi’s top players leave Ole Miss in wait-and-see mode
The reason it might seem like things are in a holding pattern with the recruiting class is that, fair or not, the perception of this class’s success is very much tied up in what happens with the top three players in Mississippi. While some of the top Mississippi classes in recent memory have been laden with top-tier defensive linemen, this class is headlined by three offensive skill position superstars. Five-star wide receiver Caleb Cunningham is committed to Alabama, but was on the Ole Miss campus for an official visit last weekend, as the Rebs continue to hang tough in his recruitment. Top 50 overall quarterback Deuce Knight is still committed to Notre Dame, but the shakiness of that commitment is a poorly-kept secret at this point. Auburn and Hugh Freeze appear to be the biggest threat to flip Knight at the moment, but Knight has been on the Ole Miss campus recently, and the Rebs are likely to have a much better season than Auburn at this point. Does a playoff-bound Rebel squad tip the scales over a Participation Bowl-caliber Auburn? Finally, Quitman running back Akylin Dear is also committed to Alabama. A fellow top-50 overall recruit, Dear was previously committed to Ole Miss before backing off and ultimately flipping to Bama. Ole Miss is definitely still working with Dear, but with running back, there are at least a few more options out there.
If any of these three guys were to end up at Ole Miss, they’d likely command a pretty hefty chunk of the NIL funds set aside for the 2025 class. You’ve got to think that Lane Kiffin and the Grove Collective are trying to weigh their odds of landing these guys against what they can offer to other uncommitted recruits. Just like parting ways with Quinshon Judkins cleared up funds for Ole Miss to recruit more offensive linemen and defenders, missing out on Cunningham, Knight, and Dear might allow Ole Miss to make a big-money push for some other elite recruits down the stretch. However, there’s also a lot of value in keeping the three homegrown superstars in-state.
Rebs’ class shaping up, but lacks superstars
Although the Rebs are currently 0/3 for the state’s top three players (actually, 0/6… the top-rated Ole Miss commit from in-state is Andrew Maddox at #7), Lane Kiffin still owns the #22 overall class for 2025, with 16 commitments so far. Broken down by position, here’s what we’re currently working with:
QB: none
RB: Shekai Mills-Knight (4 stars)
WR: Dillon Alfred (4 stars), Samari Reed (3 stars)
TE: Hayden Bradley (3 stars)
OL: Taren Hendrick, Kenneth Boston (3 stars)
DL: Andrew Maddox (4 stars), Corey Adams, Talib Graham (3 stars)
LB: Jarcoby Hopson (4 stars), Corey Amos, Bryson Walters (3 stars)
DB: Keon Young, Cortez Thomas, Maison Dunn (4 stars), Major Preston (3 stars)
Certainly not a bad start, though the class currently lacks the star power you might expect a top-5 team to attract. Plenty of time, plenty of blue chip players still in the mix, but Lane Kiffin will have his work cut out for him if he intends to sign a top-level SEC class.
