Ole Miss and Louisville to play in 2021 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game

By Kevin Kelley -

The Ole Miss Rebels will play the Louisville Cardinals in the 2021 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, FBSchedules.com has learned.

A copy of the signed game contract was obtained by FBSchedules.com from the University of Mississippi via an open records request.

The game will be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia on one of three dates, which depends on possible changes to the start of the playing season. The possible dates are Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021, Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021 or Sunday, Sept. 5 2021.

CBS or ESPN/ABC will broadcast the game. Ole Miss has been designated the home team and will wear blue jerseys, and Louisville will be the visitor and will don red jerseys.

Ole Miss will receive a $4,250,000 guarantee for the game and they will be allotted 29,550 tickets (Note: Louisville’s guarantee and ticket allotment was not listed. Details will be added when their version of the contract is obtained).

Provided the two schools don’t meet in a postseason bowl game, the 2021 Chick-fil-A matchup will be the first-ever contest between Ole Miss and Louisville on the gridiron.

Ole Miss has appeared in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game once previously. In that game played in 2014, the Rebels defeated Boise State 35-13 in front of a crowd of 32,823.

Louisville has also played once in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. The Cardinals fell to Auburn 31-24 before a crowd of 73,927 in 2015.

Future Chick-fil-A Kickoff Games

  • 2017 – Alabama vs. Florida State (Sat., Sept. 2)
  • 2017 – Georgia Tech vs. Tennessee (Mon., Sept. 4)
  • 2018 – Auburn vs. Washington (Sat., Sept. 1)
  • 2019 – Alabama vs. Duke (Sat., Aug. 31)
  • 2020 – Florida State vs. West Virginia (Sat., Sept. 5)
  • 2020 – Georgia vs. Virginia (Mon., Sept. 7)
  • 2021 – Louisville vs. Ole Miss (Aug. 28 or Sept. 4-5)

Football Schedules

Comments (9)

LOL… Yea… Louisville schedules Ole Miss knowing they will only have about 50 football players on their team then… Heck most High School teams would beat Ole Miss after the NCAA gets finished with them…

Seems like a pretty bad idea to schedule a team that will probably be dealing with massive scholarship reductions and a bowl ban…

Ole Miss ain’t gonna loose any recruits. The NCAA is just gonna give them a slap on the wrist. Then Ole Miss is gonna show every one that we are the real deal.

This is a good match-up, even if Ole Miss is on probation. The Rebels will properly end up winning this game, then the haters will have nothing to comment on.

I have only recently started paying attention to such things, but 4.25M seems huge, 1.5 Million more than Wisconsin and Notre Dame games at NFL stadiums on the schedule.

Louisville is also scheduled to play Bama to open 2018. This more to do with Chick Fil A offering them a boatload of money to play in another marquee season-opening game. It seems odd that Ole Miss is being offered the game by CFA, not that Louisville is taking it.