Ole Miss beat No. 4 Florida 31-30 on Saturday. It was a combination of a bad day from Florida, some opportunistic plays by Ole Miss, a blocked extra point in the fourth quarter, and a little luck. Surprisingly, we’ve beaten Florida three out of the last four times we’ve played them, including the last two games in Florida. I doubt our recent record against any other SEC opponent is that good, possibly excepting Vanderbilt.
Our upset of Florida and some of the other games that took place this weekend force me to reevaluate my predictions for the rest of the year. We are currently 3-2, 3 wins from being bowl eligible. Louisiana-Monroe should be a “gimme,” so we only need to beat two of South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, and Mississippi State.
I’m going to go ahead and count Alabama and LSU as loses. Yes, upsets happen, as we can see, but they are unlikely. South Carolina is very beatable. Arkansas continues to have a horrible year (52-10 loss to Texas), so we should beat them. While Auburn is winning for the most part, they haven’t been too impressive. An upset against them is looking less unlikely. Mississippi State is a wild card just like most years.
We could have a 7-5 year by beating 3 of South Carolina, Arkansas, Auburn, and Mississippi State, and that doesn’t look as unlikely as it did a few weeks ago. Is 7-5 optimistic? Yes. Could it happen. Absolutely. This week’s game against South Carolina will tell us a lot.
This year’s SEC West champ will almost certainly be LSU or Alabama. In addition to each other, LSU has Florida and Georgia remaining, while Alabama has Auburn.
With the upset of USC, Geogia, and Florida this weekend, the top 25 looks a lot different. Oklahoma is now No. 1, despite the fact the only ranked team they’ve played is no longer ranked. They still have to play Texas (No. 5) and Texas Tech (No. 7). Alabama and LSU are two and three, respectively.
The first BCS rankings (boo) will be out in three weeks.