No. 8 Ole Miss at No. 13 Oklahoma – 11 a.m. CT, ABC
Ole Miss heads into the back end of a brutal two-game road stretch after a heartbreaker at Georgia last Saturday. In their first loss of the season, the Rebels allowed the Bulldogs to storm back in the fourth quarter, giving up 17 unanswered points.
Ole Miss will now turn its attention to an Oklahoma team that bounced back from its Red River Rivalry loss to Texas with a 19-point win over South Carolina. Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables’ defense held the Gamecocks scoreless in the second half.
The Rebels’ high-flying offense will be tested by a Sooners unit that has surrendered the fewest yards per game in the Football Bowl Subdivision through week eight.
“(Oklahoma) feels like, looking at it, statistically the best defense we’ve ever played here,” Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said in his Monday press conference. “Hardly anybody has done anything against them. I think they’ve given up five or six touchdowns all year long, I think two in the first half of games (played), which is just incredible numbers. Brent’s done an awesome job.”
No. 15 Missouri at No. 10 Vanderbilt – 2:30 p.m. CT, ESPN
Ahead of facing Texas in Austin next week, Vanderbilt — now a top 10 team in the AP Poll for the first time since 1947 — hosts a Missouri team coming off its first road game of the season and a hard-fought win over Auburn.
Vanderbilt defeated LSU behind 246 total yards and three touchdowns from graduate quarterback Diego Pavia, who continues to make his case in a wide-open Heisman Trophy race. The Commodores held the lead for the duration of the second half, dominating the time of possession with a bruising, multifaceted run game.
After tying the game against Auburn in the fourth quarter, Missouri outlasted its opposition in overtime behind a seven-play drive that ended in graduate quarterback Beau Pribula’s rushing touchdown.
Missouri head coach Eliah Drinkwitz’s team is set to face its second of three top 10 teams, falling to Alabama two weeks ago and hosting Texas A&M next Saturday.
No. 3 Texas A&M at No. 20 LSU – 6:30 p.m. CT, ABC
LSU is in dire need of a win after dropping two of its last three games on the road to Ole Miss and Vanderbilt. To get it, head coach Brian Kelly’s team will have to beat the sole remaining undefeated team in the conference.
Since their gusty upset of Notre Dame back on Sept. 13, the Aggies have been firing on all cylinders. Texas A&M has scored more than 30 points in three of its four conference games. However, head coach Mike Elko’s defense showed its most flawed performance yet last week against Arkansas, conceding 42 points and 527 yards to the Razorbacks.
The Saturday night matchup in Baton Rouge may come down to the Tigers’ shaky offense versus the Aggies’ questionable defense.
“We haven’t played that complementary football where both sides are hitting on all cylinders,” Kelly said in his Monday press conference. “We just haven’t hit that point yet. So we’ll continue to prepare our football team, work on the things that can help us get to that level and it’s an ongoing process.”
