3 reasons why you should watch Ole Miss and Arkansas on Saturday

We’ve reached that time of year again. Late October, but not late enough into the season to put down a full patina on Ole Miss’ football season (We can, it’s been bad). We’ve also reached that time of year when Ole Miss meets Arkansas for the annual SEC West Ax Fight Bowl, a yearly tradition that sees one or the other fall in crushing fashion late, or early, and thus blow the tires on that team’s bowl chances. Ole Miss ain’t going to a bowl this year, so they have nothing to lose.

Shithouse rat engage.

Bret Beilema’s outfit this year are in somewhat dire straights. BERT’s hogs are ranked No. 90 in Bill C.’s current S&P+ ledger, giving up nearly 42 points per game, not including garbage time. That seems like a lot. Ole Miss is allowing nearly 44 points per game, so whatever. That’s what makes this game fun (?) every year, because LITERALLY ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN HERE. FOURTH AND TWENTY FIVE LATERAL FOR THE WIN WHY THE HELL NOT. That could totally happen again on Saturday, and that’s great, but also horrific.

Ole Miss opened as slight favorites this week, but that line is bound to change. What we’re here to talk about are the sundry reasons that Ole Miss and Arkansas may offer up the most entertaining football of the college football year, as they do every year.

They both suck ass.

There’s no other way to describe it. Arkansas is 2-5, Ole Miss is 3-4. Neither has impressed all that much in their respective wins, and Arkansas owns a 48-22 lost to South Carolina. We won’t speak about Ole Miss’ losses because they’re equally as bad.

Still, these teams for whatever reason get up for each other, and they could pull out some real dull daggers on Saturday. They hate each other, but not enough to really murder the other, because they’re too alike. They share Houston Nutt, after all, and that stain is too embarrassing to insult the other over.

There could always be some late theatrics.

I’m sorry to show this to you again, Ole Miss fan, but we must constantly remind ourselves that it happened.

What utterly bad luck for the Rebs on that possession. Only something like that could have happened to Ole Miss at the hands of BERT and Arkansas.

In the 2016 edition of this game, Ole Miss led, 30-27, with as little as three minutes left on the clock. Arkansas punched in a touchdown from seven yards out at that point to take a four-point lead. Remember: the Rebs doinked the extra point attempt on their first touchdown, which caused this weird score in the first place.

On the Rebs’ ensuing drive, Chad Kelly very nearly converted a four-and-16 from Ole Miss’ 20, but had the ball pop out right at the first down marker and that effectively ended the game right there and then.

Bret Bielema may be coaching for his job.

Like Tennessee’s embattled Butch Jones, who may very well be out of work as soon as Monday, BERT’s been sitting on a continually warming seat for the better part of two seasons. How hysterical would it be if interim coach Matt Luke added one more log to the fire, and quite possibly the log that blows Bielema out of Fayetteville?