Ole Miss quarterback Austin Simmons will enter the transfer portal with a “do not contact” tag, and Missouri is the expected destination for the 20-year-old who opened the 2025 season as Lane Kiffin’s starter before an ankle injury derailed his campaign.
Why Austin Simmons Is Leaving Ole Miss for Missouri
Simmons’ path to the portal stems from circumstance more than dissatisfaction. He started the Rebels’ season opener against Georgia State, throwing for 341 yards with three touchdowns in a 63-7 blowout. A week later at Kentucky, he injured his left ankle in a 30-23 win, and the job he’d waited three years to claim slipped away.
Trinidad Chambliss, the Division II transfer who’d been Simmons’ backup, stepped in against Arkansas and never looked back. Chambliss has since thrown for 3,660 yards with 21 touchdowns and finished eighth in Heisman voting, leading Ole Miss to the College Football Playoff semifinals.
Simmons attempted just 20 passes over four games after returning from injury. He finished the season completing 60% of his throws for 744 yards with four touchdowns and five interceptions across eight appearances. The numbers don’t capture his situation: he was healthy enough to play but couldn’t reclaim a job from a quarterback playing at a Heisman level.
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The “do not contact” designation tells you everything about where this is headed. Simmons isn’t shopping for offers. A Missouri Tigers team that needs a quarterback after Beau Pribula announced his own portal entry is the destination.
For the Tigers, Simmons represents exactly what Eli Drinkwitz needs: a quarterback with SEC starting experience, two years of eligibility remaining, and intimate knowledge of a scheme similar to what Missouri runs.
Simmons will enter Columbia as a graduate transfer, degree in hand, ready to compete immediately.
There’s an interesting wrinkle to his arrival. Missouri travels to Ole Miss on Oct. 17, 2026, meaning Simmons would face his former team in Oxford less than a year after leaving.
Austin Simmons’ Unconventional Path to SEC Quarterback
Few players arrive at this stage with a story like Simmons’.
He reclassified not one but two years, jumping from the 2025 recruiting class to the 2023 cycle. By the time he enrolled at Ole Miss, he’d already earned an associate’s degree from Miami Dade College.
He graduated from Ole Miss in May 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in multidisciplinary studies at age 19.
At Pahokee High School in Florida, he broke Anquan Boldin’s single-season passing record with 3,242 yards and 24 touchdowns as a sophomore. That’s the same Pahokee that produced one of the NFL’s most reliable receivers, and Simmons rewrote the record book before most kids get their driver’s license.
He’s also a legitimate baseball prospect. As a freshman reliever for Ole Miss in 2024, Simmons went 2-0 with a 3.21 ERA, striking out 20 batters over 14 innings. The left-hander can touch 96 mph. He gave up baseball before the 2025 season to focus on football, a decision that now looks prescient given his portal move.
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“Just went out there and dominated,” Simmons told ESPN about his relief appearance against Georgia in 2024, when he led a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive after Jaxson Dart went down with an injury. “Just trusted my preparation.”
That composure is what attracted Kiffin in the first place.
“There’s no way you teach any of that,” Kiffin said of Simmons’ natural throwing motion earlier this year. “I don’t know [anything] about golf, but I bet there’s a lot within golf swings where a coach goes like, ‘Man, that guy just has this unbelievable swing. I can’t really teach it.’ I feel like that’s the case.”
Now Drinkwitz inherits that arm and that poise. Simmons joins a Missouri quarterback room that includes Matt Zollers, Sam Horn, and incoming signee Gavin Sidwar. He’ll be the favorite to start.
Simmons plans to remain with Ole Miss through the Rebels’ playoff run. They face Miami in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal on Jan. 8. After that, expect the Missouri announcement to follow quickly.
Track every portal move as it happens with our Transfer Portal Tracker.
