OXFORD, Miss. – The 2009 football season opener between Ole Miss and Memphis is being moved to Sunday, Sept. 6, in order to accommodate ESPN’s desire to provide a national telecast of the game, it was announced Tuesday.  Originally scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 5, kickoff has been set for 2:30 p.m. (CDT) in Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

The decision to televise the Ole Miss-Memphis game now gives the Rebels two ESPN telecasts in the month of September.  It was earlier announced that Ole Miss was moving its Sept. 26 game at South Carolina to Thursday, Sept. 24, in order for the Rebels and Gamecocks to be included in ESPN’s Thursday Night national package.

Prior to the upcoming game, ESPN or ESPN2 has telecast the Ole Miss-Memphis contest three times.  The 2003 game in Memphis was shown on ESPN2, while ESPN telecast the 2005 game in Memphis on a Monday (Labor Day) and the 2006 game in Oxford on a Sunday.  Ole Miss holds a 2-1 advantage for games carried on the ESPN platforms.

"We are excited to have the Ole Miss-Memphis game return to our Labor Day weekend lineup," said Dave Brown, ESPN Vice President of Programming and Acquisitions. "We greatly appreciate the cooperation of both schools in moving the game to the Sunday afternoon timeslot that is a great showcase for college football."

Meanwhile, spring football practice at Ole Miss begins Friday afternoon and will conclude with the annual Red-Blue “Grove Bowl” on Saturday, April 18.  Head coach Houston Nutt’s second spring at Ole Miss finds his Rebels returning six starters on offense and eight more on defense

Ole Miss is coming off a 9-4 season (5-3 SEC), which included an impressive 47-34 victory over No. 8 Texas Tech in the 2009 AT&T Cotton Bowl and a No. 14 final national ranking.  In Nutt’s first season at the helm, the Rebels enjoyed one of the greatest turnarounds in school history, marking the team’s best improvement from one season (3-9 in 2007) to the next since legendary Ole Miss Coach John Vaught’s debut in 1947.

OLE MISS 2009 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE