OXFORD -- This year, there are no excuses.

Let’s be clear here. Throughout the last three seasons, journalists and fans alike have pointed to this game or that game as the most important or most critical or most whatever of Lane Kiffin’s tenure at Ole Miss.

For the most part, it’s just been boisterous rhetoric. Kiffin has done an amazing job at Ole Miss, winning 27 of 37 games over the past three seasons, including Saturday’s 35-3 shellacking of Louisiana-Monroe.

If you want to spin numbers a bit and go back to Halloween 2020, by all means, have at it. Given all of the skewing of numbers that officials performed in far more important aspects of life that fall, I’m cool with adding a 4-1 finish to that ridiculous season and saying Kiffin has won 31 of the last 42 games he’s coached since arriving in Oxford in December 2019.

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He’s won some big games, elevated the program’s profile exponentially and is on the cusp of guiding the Rebels to two New Year’s Six access bowls in three years. He’s really avoided massive screw-ups along the way.

Sure, some will point to last November’s loss at Arkansas, but the Razorbacks played an out-of-their-minds first half on senior night in Fayetteville. Some will point to a 2021 loss at Auburn, but the Rebels were banged up that night and quarterback Matt Corral was basically playing on one leg.

I would assert Kiffin has avoided the massive disaster that torpedoes a season — with one exception — last season’s Egg Bowl. Now that was a disaster.

Five days after that aforementioned loss at Reynolds Razorbacks Stadium, Ole Miss came home and played an uninspired, blasé Egg Bowl. Mississippi State, in what turned out to be Mike Leach’s final game, won, 24-22.

You can toss all of the excuses in — the Rebels were distracted by Kiffin-to-Auburn rumors, they were tired after not arriving back in Oxford until the wee hours Sunday morning, the offense played 90-plus snaps unsuccessfully trying to eras a 42-6 deficit, the football gods wanted to send Leach out a winner, etc. — but the loss was ridiculous. It cost Ole Miss a Florida-based bowl and sent the Rebels to Houston to face an inspired Texas Tech team in the Texas Bowl. The Rebels, as uninspired as the Red Raiders were inspired, lost by 17.

This time around, there are no excuses. Unless it’s the world’s best kept secret, Kiffin isn’t going anywhere except the recruiting trail in the coming weeks. There’s no late-night/early-morning travel to Oxford from Fayetteville and everyone is basically rested after a casual outing against Terry Bowden’s Warhawks.

Ole Miss is better than Mississippi State. Period. It’s really that simple. However, anyone who has followed the history of the rivalry knows the Bulldogs will almost certainly be ready to play Thursday night in Starkville. Zach Arnett is fired, replaced by interim coach Greg Knox. Bowl eligibility is in sight for Mississippi State, and all jokes aside, that bowl streak is important to that program.

Mississippi State can end Ole Miss’ access bowl hopes. Even with a win, a berth in the Peach, Cotton or Fiesta Bowl isn’t guaranteed, but a 10-win Ole Miss team coached by Kiffin facing Texas in the Cotton Bowl is going to be more attractive to the folks in Dallas than the same game with Penn State on the other sideline. A loss in Starkville would stop that campaign in its tracks and possibly even drop the Rebels below the Citrus Bowl, which is the floor for a 10-2 Ole Miss team.

Before this season, anyone would’ve taken 10-2 with the only losses coming on the road against inarguably two of the best four programs in the country — Alabama and Georgia. After beating ULM, Ole Miss is 9-2. The only thing standing in the way of that 10-win season and a rewarding postseason opportunity is Mississippi State.

I would argue Thursday night is the most important game Kiffin has coached at Ole Miss over the past three years. One could argue with that and those arguments would be compelling, I admit. However, no loss would sting worse than a setback in Starkville this Thanksgiving.

Kiffin knows it, too. He and his staff were turning the page to Mississippi State Saturday afternoon. In five days, he and his program can feast and then rest on their laurels — but only if they finish this regular season with a win.