A Look at the Current State of Ole Miss Football's 2025 Running Back Room

Ole Miss will have a revamped running back room in 2025.

Baylor's Shekai Mills-Knight (1) celebrates his touchdown during the TSSAA BlueCross Bowl Division II-AAA championship game at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga, Tenn. on Thursday, Nov 30, 2023. / Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Ole Miss Rebels found a diamond in the rough this season with Henry Parrish filling in for a questionable running back room. However, with the departure of multiple backs this season, the Rebels will be looking for a completely revamped backfield in 2025.

The Rebels will be losing Parrish and Ulysses Bentley to eligibility limits as well as Matt Jones and Rashad Amos to the portal.

Still, Ole Miss has been working its magic in the portal, bringing in Kewan Lacy out of Missouri in December. The true freshman back appeared in six games where he tallied 104 yards on 23 carries before hitting the portal. Lacy is listed at 5-foot-9 and 195 pounds and could be a vital piece of Ole Miss’ new young core in the backfield. 

Ole Miss has also brought in a top running back recruit Shekai Mills-Knight. The elite running back in the class of 2025 is coming out of the Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Mills is a four-star prospect listed at 6-foot-1 and 205 pounds.

He could be a big goal line piece for the Rebels in his next couple years in Oxford, especially since size was drastically lacking for Ole Miss at the running back position in 2024. Mills-Knight is young, but with the right training, his impact could be felt sooner rather than later.

One returner for the Rebels is Logan Diggs who has yet to make his debut in Oxford. However in his first three collegiate seasons, he has racked up 1,703 yards and 14 touchdowns at Notre Dame and LSU, so he will likely provide a veteran presence to Ole Miss' backfield in 2025 that could help streamline the success of an offense that will be led by a new quarterback in Austin Simmons.

While Ole Miss did not get the result it wanted this season (a playoff berth), the future of Oxford is in the hands of a young core in the backfield with this group of running backs and Simmons taking over the reins at the quarterback position. The Rebels may still try to add a back or two out of the portal this offseason, but the position group is already taking shape for 2025 and beyond.