Ole Miss adds Washington State to 2025 schedule after Wake Forest drama
Ole Miss will host Washington State next season. The Cougars will replace the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, who canceled their showdown against the Rebels in 2025 in September.
Ole Miss and Wake Forest had a home-and-home agreement. The Rebels honored their part of the deal, visiting Wake Forest this season and defeating the Demon Deacons 40-6 in Week 3. However, leading up to the game, Wake Forest notified Ole Miss it would not be visiting Oxford in 2025.
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin was outspoken about his frustration.
“Really, a very abnormal thing for Wake [Forest] to do,” Kiffin said. “You usually don’t do that in the season before. It’s hard. There’s not people to play. It’s why you do scheduling in advance, and you make deals, and you go and play there, and they come back.
“I would just say that’s rarely ever done. I’ve never really heard of doing it, and it really puts us at a big disadvantage. And it is what it is. Obviously, it wasn’t appreciated very much to put is in that situation. And now we got to go find somebody and most people are all scheduled up. And even when you find them, you got to go pay them. So, it’s kind of an unwritten rule not to do that actually.”
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It’s traditional for programs to create their non-conference schedules over a year in advance. With every team locking down quality future opponents as soon as possible, few programs had open slots on their schedule this close to next season.
Nonetheless, Ole Miss found a quality opponent in Washington State. The Cougars are 4-1 this season, with their sole loss coming against No. 25 Boise State. While Kiffin is undoubtedly happy to find a foe to replace Wake Forest next season, he seemingly won’t forget the Demon Deacons’ decision anytime soon.
“I find it really amazing that you wait until the week of the game to tell the team,” Kiffin said. “I mean if they thought they were going to disrupt us and [Wake Forest athletic director] John Currie was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to tell them the week of and disrupt them.’ So maybe that was their game plan.”