Ole Miss debuts new Manning Center football complex with mesmerizing drone video

Ole Miss took the chance to show off a shiny new football facility this week as the Manning Center is open for business. And the drone footage flying around the building is eye-catching.

Starting off swooping around Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, the drone moves through an exit to the stadium concourse. It quickly zooms across a sidewalk from the stadium and through the front door of the Manning Center.

As it flies through the front doors and swings past some trophies, old audio cuts in through the music, describing then Ole Miss head coach Johnny Vaught hoisting a Sugar Bowl trophy.

Welcome to The Manning Center#ComeToTheSip pic.twitter.com/73X2euakpP

— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) July 28, 2023

The flight goes on, with plenty more audio cut in deftly to mesh with the video, like cutting in an old radio clip about the “walk of champions” as the drone soared through the Walk of Champions within the building.

After a brief swing through the weight room, complete with audio overlays of a team workout, viewers are taken for a lap of head coach Lane Kiffin’s office. In between, there was a quick stop at a print of Archie Manning, one of the facilities namesakes and a Rebels football legend.

Following sights of the swanky new training tables and recovery spaces, team auditorium and locker room, the drone does a fly by of the practice field, set up with balloons and yard games for a recruiting weekend or the like.

From the locker room, it’s down a long hallway adorned with sharks — evoking the landshark defense that Ole Miss wishes to emulate — before a direct tunnel to the field.

It’s been a long awaited debut for the Manning Center around Ole Miss, and they certainly showed it off in style so far.

Ole Miss leaders are excited about the new facility

A few members of the Ole Miss brass expressed their excitement for the project with On3’s Ole Miss Spirit.

“It’s gonna be out of this world,” Denson Hollis, the Chief Development Officer/Associate A.D. for Development at the Ole Miss Athletics Foundation (OMAF), previously told the Ole Miss Spirit.

“It’s so awesome. ICM (Construction) has done a great job with that building. It’s going to be a real difference-maker for the Ole Miss football program.”

Athletics director Keith Carter previously told the Spirit the project should ultimately come in around $45 million. The square footage of the building itself has grown from 181,500 to 221,000. Among the revamped amenities is a new weight room, as well as new and improved coaches offices and team locker room.

“It’ll be state-of-the-art (and) as good as any facility in the country,” Carter said.