Ahead of a Super Regional series against the Auburn Tigers, an Oxford, Mississippi-based reporter is spreading rumors that the Ole Miss Rebels' travel plans were neglected and sabotaged, and they had been partly booked five miles up I85 at the Opelika Holiday Inn.
247Sports' Chase Parham made the claim that the Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau didn't secure spaces for the Rebels in Auburn proper, leading to some of Ole Miss's players being separated from their team before the series at Plainsman Park this weekend. Worst of all, Parham claimed that the University of Mississippi never heard from Auburn University about the incident.
Deputy AD Rhett Hobart took to X to respond to the allegations and set the record straight, particularly on the lack of contact aspect.
Per Hobart, "Lots of misinformation here. We had a local hotel contracted for months - they did not hold up their end of the agreement and never blocked the rooms, per the agreement. We found this out at the same time Ole Miss did when we tried to contact the hotel as well and got no response. Ole Miss also requested 25 additional rooms above the NCAA-required block - not uncommon, but there was no shot that the hotel which already didn’t block the contracted rooms could then also come up with 25 more. In order to accommodate the larger room block request, we suggested another hotel option that had more availability + a sister hotel in a shared parking lot. This provided much more than the rooms being requested. This provided 34 rooms at one hotel and additional as at the adjacent property. This was solved within 6 hours of being made aware of the issue." Mic dropped.
Auburn-Ole Miss Super Regional already featuring classic SEC gamesmanship
Wherever the truth lies, it's fun that this rumor is popping up at all, quite frankly. It gives shades of 1896, when several students greased the railroad tracks before a football game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. The legend goes that Georgia Tech's players had to walk five miles back to the Plains. That's classic SEC lore that feels less common these days as college sports removes every semblance of tradition they once had.
Even if Auburn did do it, it's not the competitive advantage that's being claimed. If anything, there are fewer distractions off Exit 58. Hell, maybe some Rebels players could even spend some of that NIL money at Tiger Town.
Either way, the spreading of that from a media company to juice up interest is a good thing; Hobart commenting on it to defend Auburn is a good thing, since it only furthers that mission of garnering interest. And classic SEC one-upsmanship is a great thing that can never cease.
Having both been given plenty of rest, these two teams are coming in on equal footing. Whether the Rebels' side is already thinking of excuses for why they couldn't escape Lee County, Alabama, with a Super Regional win or not is a fair question to ask, though.
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