Ole Miss and Baylor agree to a 2020 neutral site game

UPDATE: Brett McMurphy of ESPN confirmed that the Ole Miss Rebels will play the Baylor Bears in the 2020 Advocare Texas Kickoff. The game will take place during the opening weekend of the 2020 college football season at NRG Stadium in Houston which, while in Baylor's home state and but a three-hour drive from Waco, will count as a neutral site.

Baylor, Ole Miss have verbally agreed to open 2020 season at Houston’s NRG Stadium, sources told @ESPN

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) February 17, 2016

The possibility of this matchup was first mentioned by Ole Miss Director of Athletics Ross Bjork last month.

"We are speaking to Baylor about a game in 2020," Bjork told SEC Nation on January 21. "Can only confirm that we are talking, and we are hopeful we can get an agreement done very soon." Sources confirm that an agreement has been reached this morning.

Baylor sources have also confirmed that a priority of the program was to schedule a "game against a [sic] SEC opponent at a neutral site in Texas," which marks a radical departure from Baylor's oft-criticized out-of-conference schedule.

Baylor, being a Big XII program, meets the criteria for the SEC's newest scheduling rule that requires its member programs to schedule a Power Five out-of-conference opponent every season. Future out-of-conference opponents for Ole Miss include Florida State in 2016, Cal in 2017 and 2019, and Georgia Tech in 2022 and 2023, and Wake Forest in 2024 and 2025. If this Ole Miss vs. Baylor matchup does come to fruition, then the Rebels' scheduling requirements will be met for the next nine seasons, save for a gap in 2018.

In 2015, Baylor finished 10-3 on the year after an 11-point win over North Carolina in the Russell Athletic Bowl. They finished the regular season with a 6-3 conference record, good for fourth in the Big XII behind Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and TCU, and earned a No. 13 ranking in the final AP poll. Interestingly, had they not fallen a Hail Mary short against Texas in their final home game of 2015, Baylor would have been Ole Miss' victim opponent in the 2016 Sugar Bowl.