Ole Miss hosts LSU in top game in the country, but Rebels not even most decorated football team on own campus

Ole Miss is home to a national championship football team. The players don't wear pads, there's no quarterback controversy, and the playbook isn't quite as thick. But they've got the gold to prove it.

The Ole Miss Special Olympics College Flag Football Club won the intercollegiate championship at the Special Olympics in Minneapolis this summer, beating Iowa in the final to capture Mississippi’s first-ever gold medal in the event. The team combines Ole Miss students, called partners, with athletes with intellectual disabilities from the surrounding region. During the 5-on-5 games, each side always has three athletes and two partners on the field.

It wasn’t easy. The Rebels dropped their first two games in Minnesota before winning their way into the championship bracket. That set up a rematch with Iowa, one of the teams that had handed them an early loss. With the score tight in the title game, a key Ole Miss player went down with a serious injury. The Rebels didn’t fold.

“We were so excited, we were all jumping around,” said Madison Dennis, a 27-year-old athlete who plays defense and is the only woman on the team. “We honestly couldn’t believe it. It was awesome to bring home gold back to Ole Miss.”

Dennis said the sport has given her more than a medal. “I just love flag football,” she said. “And it has helped me build new friendships, different people that I would have never gotten to meet. And the partners, I like having them there to help us. That’s a pretty cool thing.”

Jason Skocy, a senior and the team’s center, said the trip changed how he saw some of his teammates. “There’s a couple of our athletes who, going into this trip, I would have said they’re probably going to be maybe a little shy, maybe not want to interact with other teams,” he said. “I was completely wrong. They were out there, making friends, staying up, playing Xbox in the lobby. It was cool to see.”

The week in Minneapolis included more than football. The team visited the Mall of America, toured the city and caught a baseball game. The Rebels traveled with nine players, though the program has enough athletes to field at least six intramural teams. Every player from the championship roster returns this season.

For the defending champions, one game stands out above the rest. “The Egg Bowl probably means just as much to us as the gold medal,” Skocy said of the annual matchup against Mississippi State. “That’s big on the calendar, so practices are going to rev up here in a little bit.”

The club got a taste of campus celebrity last weekend when the football team honored them during the home game against Charlotte. The reception was loud enough to leave an impression.

“I don’t know what it sounded like to the rest of the stadium, but down there on the field, when the camera panned to the athletes, it sounded like the student section erupted and you would have thought that we just ran in a touchdown,” said Hunter Crabbs, the university’s intramural sports and sports clubs coordinator and one of the team’s coaches. “They were cheering so loud for our athletes and partners and it was really awesome to observe. Our players, they’ve definitely become mini celebrities.”

Crabbs also sees similarities between the flag team’s approach and the one the football Rebels will use Saturday night against LSU. “It’s a much smaller playbook than what we might be using,” he said, “but it’s a very similar process.”

Skocy said the football team could draw some inspiration from the squad that’s already finished the job. “Hopefully, they see us and they’re like, ‘Well, we’ve got to go get a national championship now.’”