Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin was disappointed to see Wake Forest cancel next year's rematch between the teams in Oxford, Mississippi.

"That's rarely ever done," Kiffin told reporters, per the Associated Press' John Zenor. "I've never really heard of doing it, and it really puts us at a big disadvantage. It is what it is. It obviously wasn't appreciated very much, them putting us in that situation."

The Rebels are left to get another opponent to fill out their 2025 schedule.

"Now we've got to go find somebody and most people are all scheduled up," Kiffin said. "And even when you find somebody, you've got to go pay them. It's kind of an unwritten rule not to do that, actually."

Wake Forest's decision was made before the Demon Deacons suffered a one-sided 40-6 defeat at home to Ole Miss this past Saturday. The Rebels went for 649 yards of offense as quarterback Jaxson Dart and running back Henry Parrish Jr. encountered little resistance from the Wake defense.

The optics of backing out of the return contest don't look good for Wake Forest because it will look like it's running scared. The school is paying a seven-figure cancellation fee as well, so the tangible cost is pretty high.

But the Demon Deacons' loss pointed to how they had little to gain from playing Ole Miss on the road. At the end of the day, they're merely exercising a clause that was mutually agreed to in the contract, so maybe Kiffin's ire should be directed at his own administrators.

If the last few rounds of realignment have shown anything, it's that college football programs have to fend for themselves and kick any sense of camaraderie to the curb.