Ole Miss’ Path To Atlanta Gets Clearer

Week 11 in the SEC was a great one if you are a football fan.  As the end of the season approaches, the gravity of each win and loss become greater and greater each week.

Ole Miss at 8-2 is currently tied for third place in the SEC west with Auburn but they still hold the head to head tie breaker over the Rebels.

Auburn fell to third after an extremely unlikely sequence of events where they turned the ball over to A&M twice in the last four snaps.  The last coming on a early snap by Auburn’s senior center Resse Dismukes.  A ridiculously unlikely play and without the mistake, Auburn would have either won or at least kicked a field goal to tie the game at 41.

Alabama moved to second in the division after a 20-13 win in overtime in Baton Rouge.  The game was eerie to watch for Ole Miss fans as the game was so low scoring and reminded me of the Ole Miss loss earlier this year.

Alabama marched down the field with 50 seconds left in the game, trailing 13-10 and Blake Sims was able to do just enough to move his team in position to tie the game and move to overtime.

Blake Sims and Nick Saban certainly learned from the experience Bo Wallace and Hugh Freeze had in Baton Rouge and handled the pressure much better in crunch time.

Having the ball first in OT, Alabama was able to get a touchdown by leaning on third and fourth check downs and LSU was unable to score on four straight passes against the Alabama defense.

With MSU and Ole Miss winning big over FCS schools, the SEC West’s final four are from Mississippi and Alabama.

Ole Miss has a clear path to come from fourth to first if a few things happen, which are all much more likely than Texas A&M beating Auburn.

First Alabama has to continue on their run for one more week and beat MSU in Tuscaloosa.  Alabama will likely be favored in the game.

Second, Auburn needs to have a hangover and lose to Georgia with Todd Gurley back in action.

Third, Auburn needs to beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl

Lastly, and obviously, Ole Miss needs to win out beating Arkansas and Mississippi State.

This will result in a 6-2 three way tie between Ole Miss, Alabama and MSU with Ole Miss having the tie breaker over those two schools and sending Ole Miss to Atlanta for their first SEC championship game.

Is it unlikely? Sure but as we saw last night, anything is possible in the SEC.