Over the last week, Ole Miss football has had two good recruiting wins from the 2026 class. First, flipping one of the top linebackers from Florida, Izayia Williams. They also grabbed one of the top in-state players at running back, Damarius Yates. It's propelled them into the top 20 in the team recruiting rankings, and they are in a good place for more top targets.
One is quarterback Landon Duckworth, a four-star prospect out of Alabama. Ole Miss has made a strong impression on the talented recruit, and that has been shown in his recent announcement. Duckworth dropped his top 5 with Ole Miss making it in alongside Auburn, Florida State, South Carolina, and North Carolina. According to the media, the Rebels and the Gmecocks have been early leaders, but now he has a top five, expect them to push hard for the No.6 ranked quarterback by 247Sports.
Duckworth has visited Ole Miss a few times, and after a recent visit in March, On3's Steve Wiltfong dropped a prediction for him to commit to the Rebels. That has not materialized, but he has spoken highly of the program.
Lane Kiffin looks to be going in heavy for a quarterback in the 2026 class, after not bringing one in during the 2025 class. However, there was no urgency to do that with Austin Simmons technically being a 2025 recruit who reclassified to the 2023 class. He is set to start for the next couple of seasons if everything goes well, so not getting a 2025 recruit was not a total disappointment.
Kiffin is chasing two or three other quarterbacks, but Duckworth looks to be the No.1 target, as he has pointed out, saying in a recent chat with On3 that "they (Ole Miss) make me feel like a priority. There is a long way to go in his recruitment, and he may not commit until the end of the year.