The Season, Ole Miss’ documentary-style franchise that provides an inside look at Rebel athletics, has long been an industry leader in the era beyond traditional coaches shows.

The in-season football version is a highly-viewed weekly offering that chronicles each game of the season, but it’s limited by time constraints — both in the length of the episode and the quick turnaround time for production.

More of both, as well as a story worthy of being told, allow for Ole Miss’ media team to show its punching power, and that’s what viewers will get from 'Belief', the feature-length offering on the Rebels’ 2022 season that ended with Ole Miss as the national champion. It debuts Thursday at 7 p.m.

Ole Miss winning the national championship would be worth the story on its own, but the intrigue is how far the Rebels came to do it. They were tied for last in the Southeastern Conference on May 1 and the last at-large selection into the NCAA Tournament.

You know all that, but The Season does a good job setting up the dire situation and delivering enough information without bogging viewers down in the losses. It was one of the biggest challenges I had while writing my book on the subject, and I was impressed with the streamlined but adequate information that propelled the story to the postseason run.

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From there, Ole Miss fans will enjoy reliving the whirlwind postseason, as the Rebels didn’t lose for nearly a month and dropped just one game during the NCAA Tournament. It hits every note that is required and provides enough meat that you weren’t aware of or hadn’t seen.

Head coach Mike Bianco is the most impactful and prominent presence. It’s a university production, so it’s not going to go deeply into his job turmoil, but it doesn't shy away from it either. There’s enough to know things aren’t cushy. The scenes with Bianco talking to his team throughout the season are the best of the show, even for me who was inundated in it daily.

I’m as aware of the happenings of the past season as about any viewer can be, and Bianco’s care and correct messages depending on the situation resonated. He challenged them and loved them and pushed them but did it with the right degree of resistance depending on the day or need. The Season is at its best when it provides those glimpses and lets viewers into what actually happened behind closed doors, not just the retelling of those moments.

I watched the film in a theater, so that’s a different viewing experience, but director Merrick McCool did an excellent job with sound mixing and editing. The transitions feel like a movie, because it is, and the music and ambient sound choices heightened the experience.

The production quality has improved over the years for a lot of reasons, but the level of detail in this one stuck out to me. While it’s nearly two hours, there was a lot to get to, and I thought the decisions were good on how much time to spend on each segment of the season.

I found my mind drifting a bit during the extended highlight sequences during games. That likely says more about me than the program, since I’ve watched those clips so many times over the months and spent the majority of my professional life diving into those moments since the College World Series ended. They are needed. They tell the story, but it’s more about the warmth of a great memory than seeing new content during that portion of the film.

That’s the negative to the release coming this long after the season ended. It’s not criticism because these things take time for a multitude of reasons, but fans have been starved for anything on the title run, so all the YouTube highlights and saturation of what was out there may make some of the game footage less heightened than if the emotions were fresher.

Watch it and record it. It’s The Season at its best, and it executes as a piece of media that offers previously unknown anecdotes and actual footage to scenes we’d only heard about. It’s a time capsule. It’s impossible for a film to hit everything, but it hits everything you’ll primarily want to see when you watch it. The package is compelling and moves quickly.

It’s worth the wait and the watch, but you’ll probably appreciate it even more months down the road when the memories have faded a bit and you want to relive the championship summer.