OXFORD, Miss — When it comes to Caden Prieskorn, the term "family and football" takes on a whole new meaning. Ole Miss’ star tight end is also a husband and father of two. His wife and kids are local celebrities of their own.
"My wife, kind of just posted these little videos on Tiktok, and they kind of just grew and grew and grew," Caden said.
"We just would make jokes like, 'imagine if a video blew up or something', and like, they all did, it was just like one after the other," Cali said.
Cali Prieskorn’s content centers mostly on being a football wife, college student and a mom to the couple's children, three-year old Mac and three-month old Romy. Her videos, collectively, have more than 19.8 million likes. Mac, already a football fanatic, is the star of the show. You'll almost always catch him in a football jersey.
"He's got the most jerseys. So as a kid, my dad always got me a bunch of little jerseys, and I had so many jerseys, and I kind of started that with him at a young age," Caden said.
Mac is a staple around the Ole Miss facility and at Rebels games. He and Cali will post up for the Rebels' Champions walk and near the field in the stands, ready to give a "lucky bump" to dad and his teammates. It's a tradition they have had since Caden was playing for Memphis.
"From the beginning, we've always just kind of done a little fist bump before the game, and we just called it a lucky bump," Cali said. "Last year, that's when that really took off."
"Lucky bumps" are popular videos on Cali's page. But Mac will do just about anything. From hanging out with Ole Miss Head Coach Lane Kiffin and his dog Juice, to playing pool with Caden's teammates, to attending sorority rush, the toddler seems to be living every SEC fan's dream.
"The funniest part for us is everything that he's doing in the videos is just him," Cali said.
The old adage is that football teams become families and Mac has about 100 "uncles". Guys like lineman Reece McIntyre and JJ Pegues and quarterbacks Jaxson Dart and Walker Howard are staples in the young Prieskorn's life.
Caden's teammates are such big influences that one TikTok video features Mac throwing t-shirts to several of them, each with an uncle saying that describes the recipient.
“Mac just brings the juice. He brings, like, every time Mac come in the room, it's like he glows up,” Pegues said.
"Man, I can be locked in. I can be, you know, serious as it gets, but, I mean, he's holding out that fist, I just start smiling, just give him a little fist bump," McIntyre said.
Teammates take their uncle duties seriously, knowing little eyes and ears may be watching. Mac is not the only toddler running around the facility and the young ones have instilled the Rebels with a sense of responsibility.
"Just doing little things and picking up this trash or doing that, just like, cleaning your area or something like that," Pegues said. "Having Mac around definitely shows us that, okay, we got to set the standard."
Navigating college as young parents has been no easy task for Cali and Caden, but Ole Miss has truly embraced the Prieskorns, from teammates, to Kiffin to the fanbase.
"We were kids having a kid, and that's hard, but I don't think we could have handled it any better," Cali said.
"I feel like I've grown a lot since I was really a freshman. I feel like I started off really impatient, but I feel like I became more like having kids, you become patient," Caden said. "(The Ole Miss community) has been awesome, just the love and support that I feel like I have with all these people around here and even the community itself, I feel like a lot of people are always willing to help out and do stuff, and I'm so grateful for that."
The Prieskorns say Caden has never lost a game when he’s gotten a lucky bump from Mac pregame and with big expectations for the Rebels this year they plan to keep the tradition going. Maybe lucky bumps are the key to College Football Playoff.