>

Vanderbilt – Ole Miss rivalry
Teams	Vanderbilt Commodores Vanderbilt Commodores football The Vanderbilt Commodores football program is a college football team that represents Vanderbilt University. The team currently competes in NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Southeastern Conference... Ole Miss Rebels Ole Miss Rebels football The football history of the University of Mississippi , includes the formation of the first football team in the state and is 26th on the list of college football's all-time winning programs...
Originated	November 10, 1894
Total Meetings	86
Series	Ole Miss leads 47-37-2
First Meeting	Vanderbilt 40, Ole Miss 0 November 10, 1894
Highest Scoring Game	Vanderbilt 91, Ole Miss 0 October 23, 1915
Largest Vanderbilt Win	Vanderbilt 91, Ole Miss 0 October 23, 1915
Largest Ole Miss Win	Ole Miss 47, Vanderbilt 0 October 28, 1961
Most Recent Game	Vanderbilt 30, Ole Miss 7 September 17, 2011

The Vanderbilt–Ole Miss football rivalry is an American college football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 rivalry

College rivalry

Pairs of schools, colleges and universities, especially when they are close to each other either geographically or in their areas of specialization, often establish a college rivalry with each other over the years. This rivalry can extend to both academics and athletics, the latter being typically...

 game played annually by the Vanderbilt Commodores football

Vanderbilt Commodores football

The Vanderbilt Commodores football program is a college football team that represents Vanderbilt University. The team currently competes in NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Southeastern Conference...

 team of Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

 and the Ole Miss Rebels football

Ole Miss Rebels football

The football history of the University of Mississippi , includes the formation of the first football team in the state and is 26th on the list of college football's all-time winning programs...

 team of the University of Mississippi

University of Mississippi

The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...

. The Rebels are the Commodores' second-longest, continuous football rivalry.

Both teams are founding members of the Southeastern Conference

Southeastern Conference

The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...

 (SEC), and their universities have the smallest and second-smallest, respectively, student body populations among SEC schools. This similar size, the schools' proximity to one another (Nashville is less than four hours from Oxford), and the similar culture of Greek life (both schools' student bodies have high percentages of participation in fraternities and sororities) led them to picked as annual inter-divisional rivals when the SEC grew to twelve teams for the 1992 season

1992 NCAA Division I-A football season

The 1992 NCAA Division I-A football season was the first year of the Bowl Coalition, and ended with Alabama's first national championship in thirteen years—their first since the departure of Bear Bryant...

.

The schools have lately been rather evenly matched. In the last ten years, Ole Miss leads the series, 6–4, but Vanderbilt has won three of the last five. The series has also been marked by close games, with the average margin between the teams since 1999 only 7 points.

Series history

The first game between the two teams was played on would later be named Currey Field on Vanderbilt's campus in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

 on November 10, 1894. That year the Commodores, led by Coach Henry Thorton and W.J. Keller, led Vanderbilt to a 40-0 win over the Mississippi Flood (as the Rebels were known until 1936).

Early in the series, Vanderbilt dominated under legendary Coach Dan McGugin (for whom the Vanderbilt athletics complex is named). The two teams played 10 games before Ole Miss even scored against Vanderbilt (scoring 2 points in a 1910 loss in Nashville). It was during this period that Vanderbilt won a game by the largest margin between the teams, winning 91-0 on October 23, 1915.

Ole Miss would not beat Vanderbilt until 1939, when the newly-christened Rebels welcomed the Commodores for Vanderbilt's first away game against Ole Miss on November 4. The Rebels won, 14-7. Three years later, on November 7, 1942, Vanderbilt won its first away-game victory over the Rebels, winning 19-0 in Oxford.

World War II intervened, and the teams didn't play again until 1945. But when they did, Ole Miss remembered their last game, and the Rebels recorded their first win in Nashville, 14-7, on October 6, 1945.

In 1947, the Commodores were ranked No. 10 in the country, and the Rebels were No. 18. At a packed game in Nashville, Vanderbilt won a close contest, 10-6.

As the 1950s wore on, the Rebels began to dominate the series. Vanderbilt won, 34-20, in 1951, but the Commodores wouldn't beat the Rebels again until 23 years later, with a 1974 win over Ole Miss, 24-14. In the meantime, the Rebels went 17-0-2 against Vanderbilt, with the ties coming in 1952 and 1964. It was during this period that Ole Miss was consistently ranked in the nation's Top 10, with the Commodores losing to a no. 2-ranked Ole Miss squad in 1960 and 1961.

While Ole Miss continued to win far more games in the 1980s and 90s, Vanderbilt fared better than the did during the middle decades of the century, going 6-18-0. The 1989 game was perhaps the most memorable of this period, but in a tragic fashion; Ole Miss cornerback Chucky Mullins

Chucky Mullins

Roy Lee "Chucky" Mullins was an American football player at Ole Miss best known for the devastating football injury that left him a quadriplegic....

 suffered a broken neck during the game that left him a quadriplegic

Quadriplegia

Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is paralysis caused by illness or injury to a human that results in the partial or total loss of use of all their limbs and torso; paraplegia is similar but does not affect the arms...

, and ultimately died from complications of the injury in 1991.

In the last decade, the Rebels and Commodores have achieved a level of parity: Ole Miss and Vanderbilt are tied at 5-5 overall , however Vanderbilt has won 5 of the last 7 contests between the two schools.

All-time records

Ole Miss leads the all–time series, 47–37-2, but the Rebels didn't assume that lead for good until their 1985 win (which put the series at 29-28-2). Prior to 1967, some games between the two teams were not played at their on-campus stadiums. Besides Oxford

Oxford, Mississippi

Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1835, it was named after the British university city of Oxford in hopes of having the state university located there, which it did successfully attract....

 and Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, the Rebels and Commodores have also squared off in Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

 and Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...

.

Vanderbilt leads the series when playing in Memphis or in Mississippi (20-19). Ole Miss leads when games are played in Nashville, Tennessee (27-15-2).

Fifteen times that the teams have played, one or both has been ranked in the Top 25. When the two teams have played, Ole Miss has been in the Top 25 fourteen times, and Vanderbilt three times.

Game results

Vanderbilt victories are shaded in ██ black. Ole Miss victories are shaded in ██ blue.

Date	Year	Location	Winner	Score
November 11	1894	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	40-0
November 4	1899	Memphis, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	11-0
October 6	1900	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	6-0
October 24	1903	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	33-0
October 15	1904	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	69-0
October 13	1906	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	29-0
November 9	1907	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	60-0
October 24	1908	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	29-0
October 30	1909	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	17-0
October 29	1910	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	9-2
November 18	1911	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	21-11
October 26	1912	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	24-0
October 23	1915	Memphis, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	91-0
October 21	1916	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	35-0
October 31	1925	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	7-0
September 28	1929	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	19-7
November 1	1930	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	24-0
October 15	1938	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	13-7
November 4	1939	Memphis, Tennessee	Ole Miss	14-7
November 2	1940	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	13-7
November 7	1942	Memphis, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	19-0
October 6	1945	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	14-7
October 5	1946	Memphis, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	7-0
October 11	1947	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	10-6
October 9	1948	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	20-7
October 8	1949	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	28-27
October 14	1950	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	20-14
October 13	1951	Memphis, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	34-20
November 11	1952	Nashville, Tennessee	Tie	21-21
October 10	1953	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	28-6
October 9	1954	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	22-7
October 8	1955	Memphis, Tennessee	Ole Miss	13-0
October 13	1956	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	16-0
October 12	1957	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	28-0
October 10	1959	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	33-0
October 8	1960	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	26-0
October 28	1961	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	47-0
October 27	1962	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	35-0
October 26	1963	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	27-7
October 24	1964	Nashville, Tennessee	Tie	7-7
October 23	1965	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	24-7
November 19	1966	Jackson, Mississippi	Ole Miss	34-0
November 25	1967	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	28-7
October 24	1970	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	26-16
October 23	1971	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	28-7
October 28	1972	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	31-7
October 27	1973	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	24-14
October 26	1974	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	24-14
October 25	1975	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	17-7
October 23	1976	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	20-3
October 22	1977	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	26-14
October 28	1978	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	35-10
October 27	1979	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	63-28
October 25	1980	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	27-14
October 24	1981	Oxford, Mississippi	Vanderbilt	27-23
October 23	1982	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	19-10
October 22	1983	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	21-14
October 27	1984	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	37-20
October 26	1985	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	35-7
October 25	1986	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	28-12
October 24	1987	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	42-14
October 22	1988	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	36-28
October 28	1989	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	24-16
October 27	1990	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	14-13
October 26	1991	Oxford, Mississippi	Vanderbilt	30-27
September 19	1992	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	31-9
September 18	1993	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	49-7
September 17	1994	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	20-14
October 28	1995	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	21-10
September 21	1996	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	20-9
September 27	1997	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	15-3
September 19	1998	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	30-6
September 18	1999	Oxford, Mississippi	Vanderbilt	37-34 (OT)
September 16	2000	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	12-7
December 1	2001	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	38-27
September 21	2002	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	45-38
August 30	2003	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	24-21
September 18	2004	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	26-23 (OT)
September 17	2005	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	31-23
October 7	2006	Oxford, Mississippi	Ole Miss	17-10
September 15	2007	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	31-17
September 20	2008	Oxford, Mississippi	Vanderbilt	23-17
October 3	2009	Nashville, Tennessee	Ole Miss	23-7
September 18	2010	Oxford, Mississippi	Vanderbilt	28-14
September 17	2011	Nashville, Tennessee	Vanderbilt	30-7