Never Too Early To Plan: SEC Releases 2023 Football Schedule
Oxford, Miss. – Despite the 2022 college football season being just three weeks in, the SEC doesn’t mess around when it comes to releasing schedules.
The 2023 schedule was released Tuesday night, and Ole Miss now knows who they will be facing next season. And, not that Ole Miss ever has an easy schedule, but 2023 is one of the more brutal they’ve had in a while.
The Tune-Up Games
Ole Miss will have three chances to get “tuned up” before the brutal SEC slate begins, beginning on September 2nd with a home game against the Mercer Bears. The FCS Bears compete in the Southland Conference and faced another SEC foe in 2022, losing to Auburn 42-16.
Things get a little tougher in week two, as the Rebels head down to New Orleans to take on the Tulane Green Wave on September 9th. Ole Miss hosted Tulane in 2021, handily defeating the Wave by a final score of 61-21.
The final pre-conference contest for the Rebels sees Georgia Tech come to Oxford on September 16th. The Rebels have already seen the Ramblin’ Wreck this season, blowing them out in Atlanta by a final score of 42-0.
Get you a QB who knows how to use the truck stick. 😳@JaxsonDart | #HottyToddy
🖥 https://t.co/W1ip3Qgr1N pic.twitter.com/T6Z8koCahV— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) September 17, 2022
What it doo?@BentleyDoo | #HottyToddy
🖥 https://t.co/W1ip3Qgr1N pic.twitter.com/3qk1zzPXj0— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) September 17, 2022
It Only Gets Harder From Here
The Rebels’ SEC slate begins in earnest following the matchup with Georgia Tech, and is as follows:
-At Alabama, September 23rd
-VS LSU, September 30th
-VS Arkansas, October 7th
-BYE, October 14th
-At Auburn, October 21st
-VS Vanderbilt, October 28th
-VS Texas A&M, November 4th
-At Georgia, November 11th
-VS UL Monroe, November 18th
-At Mississippi State, November 23rd (Thursday/Thanksgiving Day)
The lone “break” in the SEC schedule comes at a convenient time for the Rebels, with Louisiana-Monroe nestled between Georgia and Mississippi State.
Ole Miss will likely need that week for their starters to heal up and fix some mistakes following what will likely be a physical matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs.
Good boy, @JuiceKiffin.
Your 2023 Ole Miss Football Schedule! pic.twitter.com/xiuDhScKAp
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) September 20, 2022
Notable Schedule Nuggets
Ole Miss, yet again, will have Alabama as its first SEC opponent after getting a break from starting off with the Tide in 2022.
The schedule layout of Bama, LSU and Arkansas back-to-back-to-back is a difficult draw and will ensure the Rebels need a lot of depth on their side next year.
Ole Miss also faces the Georgia Bulldogs for the first time since 2016, a year that saw Ole Miss lay a 45-14 beatdown on the Dawgs from Athens. Much will be made about this matchup and the possible “revenge” factor for Georgia, but after seven years, don’t put too much stock into that hype.
The teams will both be completely different than they were back then and Georgia will have at least one national championship to their name since then, with 2022 results still pending.
Ole Miss will get an extra week to prepare for a trip to Jordan-Hare Stadium to face the Auburn Tigers in 2023.
Auburn is notorious among the Ole Miss faithful, and around the SEC in general, as a place where calls always seem to go the way of the home team.
The Tigers have also won the last six meetings against the Rebels with the 2022 matchup still pending. The Rebels will look to end that streak this season, and then start a winning streak of their own in 2023.
The Egg Bowl will yet again be on Thanksgiving night. Coming into the 2022 season, Ole Miss has won the last two matchups against their in-state rival, and Lane Kiffin’s squad will look to make it three in a row this year.
Should the Rebels pull off another win in Oxford this season, expect a hopping mad group of Bulldogs. The last time either team won four Egg Bowls in a row was Ole Miss, from 1983-1986.
Looking Ahead
Although the times and TV schedules for 2023 season have yet to be released, Ole Miss’ next 2022 matchup with Tulsa will be this Saturday, September 24th at 3:00 p.m. and will air on the SEC Network.
Ole Miss looks to move to 4-0 on the season before opening SEC play with Kentucky the following week.
Austin Eldridge
Austin has more than ten years in sports media, including sports talk radio, play-by-play broadcasting and journalism. He has followed Ole Miss athletics for his entire life and has covered the Rebels and the rest of the SEC while working in the Memphis media market. Outside of sports media, Austin is a musician and outdoorsman. Before a serious accident forced him to be medically discharged, he was a multi-media journalist with the Mississippi National Guard.
