Currently, Ole Miss athletics is in its Golden Age, as every major sports team at the university had a great deal of success during the 2024-2025 school year. The football and volleyball teams had plenty of success in the fall, both basketball programs made it to the Sweet 16, and the baseball team is off to a hot start as well.

With such success comes individual honors, and head men's basketball coach Chris Beard was given the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award on Monday. Head football coach Lane Kiffin responded emphatically to the news in a post on X.

Beard's team won 24 games this season while playing a loaded SEC schedule and made it to the NCAA Tournament Regional Semifinal for the first time in over two decades. He coached guard Sean Pedulla to Third-Team All-SEC honors as well as a South Regional All-Tournament Team distinction, so the players reaped the benefits of his coaching as well.

Coach Kiffin has yet to win a major award as a college football coach, but it feels like he is on the cusp of turning the Rebels program into something special. He has won 27 games in the last three years, and it is only a matter of time before Beard is congratulating Kiffin on an award of his own.