McCready: Rebels' win sets stage for huge showdown with No. 8 Kentucky

OXFORD — The stage is finally set.

For the longest time, it’s been fairly obvious next Saturday’s game between Kentucky and Ole Miss would be a monumental litmus test for both programs.

No. 16 Ole Miss’ non-conference slate was front-loaded, beginning with a Sept. 3 date with Troy and concluding with Saturday’s 35-27 win over Tulsa. In between, the Rebels throttled FCS foe Central Arkansas and ACC cellar-dweller Georgia Tech.

No. 8 Kentucky opened the season with a win over Miami (Ohio) and then won as a five-point underdog against a Florida team that had opened its season with a win over Utah but has subsequently looked quite mortal.

The Wildcats then defeated FCS foe Youngstown State and will almost certainly defeat another MAC opponent, Northern Illinois, tonight to get to Oxford unscathed.

What do we know about Ole Miss? Not a ton, really, and things are even cloudier after Saturday. Tulsa, a middle-of-the-pack American Athletic Conference program, was definitely the Rebels’ stiffest September challenge, and the Golden Hurricane raised more than a few questions about Ole Miss four games into the season.

For the first time this season, Ole Miss didn't tackle very well. Tulsa accumulated yardage on the ground and through the air, despite losing starting quarterback Davis Brin to an apparent knee injury in the second quarter. Tulsa's final tally of 457 yards was just five short of Ole Miss' output. The Rebels' offense bogged down badly in the second half, creating an opening for Tulsa. Pass protection was an issue. The kicking game, particularly punt return, was sloppy.

Ole Miss, to its credit, made a couple of fourth-quarter stops and then got two first downs to run out the clock and end the drama, but it wasn't the performance Lane Kiffin was looking for in the final pre-SEC tuneup.

What do we know about Kentucky? Not much more than that. The Wildcats survived the month with star running back Craig Rodriguez on the shelf due to some NCAA-related issues. Rodriguez will presumably be back in the lineup when the Wildcats take the field at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

Here’s the thing, though: Both teams pass the eye test. Ole Miss can run the football, has a young quarterback with a tremendous upside and enough weapons at tight end and wide receiver to be dangerous. The Rebels’ defense is fast, physical and — so far, at least — tackles quite well.

Kentucky has a first-round draft choice at quarterback in Will Levis. The Wildcats sport an active defensive front and a handful of players in the secondary.

The national media might ignore it, but these are two programs on the rise. Dating back to the 2020 Gator Bowl, Kentucky is 15-3 in its last 18 games. Dating back to the 2020 Outback Bowl, Ole Miss is — you likely guessed it — 15-3 in its last 18 games. In a league in which Georgia and Alabama are clearly in a tier of their own, the only program that can even get near the Rebels and the Wildcats over that 18-game period is Arkansas, and they’re not all that close. Entering tonight’s meeting with No. 23 Texas A&M, the 10th-ranked Razorbacks are 12-4 since the start of the 2021 season. If you go back two games in 2020 — Arkansas’ bowl game that year was canceled due to COViD-related virtue signaling — the Hogs fall to 12-6. Everyone else in the league — even ballyhooed Southeastern Conference big boys such as LSU, Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn and Tennessee — falls short of the standard Kentucky and Ole Miss have established in the transfer portal era of college football.

So yeah, next Saturday’s 11 a.m. kick is huge. The game will be televised on ESPN, and the guess here is it’s on the short list to be the host site for the network’s College Gameday show. The importance of hosting that show is up for debate, at least in my opinion, but the fact that Ole Miss is under consideration after hosting Kirk Herbstreit and the guys last November speaks volumes about the job Lane Kiffin has done in 2 1/2 years. Maybe that show comes to Oxford. Maybe it goes to Fayetteville for Alabama-Arkansas. Maybe it goes to Clemson for North Carolina State-Clemson. Maybe it goes to Iowa City for Michigan-Iowa. I’m not sure it matters, really.

Only numbers matter, and Ole Miss and Kentucky have elite numbers.

And next Saturday’s winner jumps into a driver’s seat of sorts. After leaving Oxford, Kentucky plays host to South Carolina and Mississippi State before traveling to Knoxville on Oct. 29. After the Wildcats finish up with the Volunteers, they play at Missouri and at home versus Vanderbilt before entertaining No. 1 Georgia on Nov. 19. In other words, if Kentucky can beat Ole Miss, there’s a very real chance the Wildcats are — at worst — 6-1 in the SEC when Georgia heads to Lexington. Do the math. In that scenario, the Wildcats would get a home shot at the defending national champions with a spot in the SEC Championship Game on the line.

Ole Miss has a slightly more difficult path, but if the Rebels defeat Kentucky, they could be off to the races. Ole Miss travels to Nashville to face Vanderbilt on Oct. 8 and then returns home to meet Auburn on Oct. 15. Barring an upset, the Rebels then hit the road at the end of October for consecutive trips to LSU and No. 23 Texas A&M.

Even if Ole Miss dropped a game in Baton Rouge or College Station, its Nov. 12 home date with No. 2 Alabama would presumably — again, writing this without knowledge of the Arkansas-Texas A&M outcome requires a bit of nuance on the part of the reader — be for first place in the SEC West. The Rebels wrap up the regular season with a trip to Arkansas and a home game five days later against Mississippi State, but you get the point — a win over Kentucky creates a path to something special.

Even in a scenario where Alabama and Georgia go through the regular season unscathed and make the four-team College Football Playoff again, the winner of the Kentucky-Ole Miss game positions itself for a New Year’s Six bowl game.

So yeah, next Saturday is big. It’s really big. It’s a game between two programs that have masterfully utilized the transfer portal. It’s a game between two programs that have established identities and cultures. It’s a game between two programs that have somewhat quietly elevated their status in the college football hierarchy.

The hype, while understated nationally, has been justified. It will likely increase in the coming days, leading into next Saturday’s showdown, and deservedly so.

For it’s a really big game coming to Oxford next Saturday. And finally, after a month of waiting, the stage is indeed set.