The 1964 Ole Miss Rebels football team represented the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi ( byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment ...

during the

1964 NCAA University Division football season The NCAA was without a playoff for the major college football teams in the University Division, later known as Division I-A, during the 20th century. The NCAA recognizes Division I-A national champions based on the final results of polls including ...

. The Rebels were led by 18th-year head coach

Johnny Vaught John Howard Vaught (May 6, 1909 – February 3, 2006) was an American college football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) from 1947 to 1970 and aga ...

and played their home games at

Hemingway Stadium Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fi ...

Oxford, Mississippi Oxford is a city and college town in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Oxford lies 75 miles (121 km) south-southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, and is the county seat of Lafayette County. Founded in 1837, it was named after the British city of Ox ...

. The team competed as members of the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

, finishing in seventh. The Rebels were the preseason favorite to win the national title, starting the season ranked first in the nation. The Rebels soon fell out of the rankings, however, after a loss to

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

in the second game of the year (the

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and br ...

ranked only the top 10 teams from 1962 to 1967). The Rebels' fall to seventh place in the conference was the school's first finish outside the conference's top four since 1950. They finished the regular season with a 5–4–1 record, tied for 20th in the final

Coaches Poll The Coaches Poll is a weekly ranking of the top 25 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football, Division I college basketball, and Division I college baseball teams. The football version of the poll has been known officiall ...

, conducted before bowl season. They were invited to the 1964 Bluebonnet Bowl, where they lost to

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region wit ...

Schedule

Personnel

References

Ole Miss Ole Miss Rebels football seasons

Ole Miss Rebels football The Ole Miss Rebels football program represents the University of Mississippi, also known as "Ole Miss". The Rebels compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Western Division ...

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