You damn number crunchers in Las Vegas are trying to take Ole Miss fans out right now.
FanDuel Sportsbook opened its odds with Ole Miss -13.5 on Sunday, and it immediately got bet up to -15.5 as money flooded
in for the Rebels (9-1, 5-1 SEC) over the Florida Gators (3-6, 2-4 SEC). The Rebels are 6-4 this season against the spread while the Gators are 3-6, which probably led to 86 percent of the bets being on Ole Miss so far.
There’s clearly some recency bias here from oddsmakers and bettors alike. Ole Miss is coming off a 49-0 win over The Citadel, and the week prior beating South Carolina 30-14. Florida, meanwhile, changed its quarterbacks in an embarrassing 38-7 road loss to Kentucky who is fighting for its postseason life.
Saturday’s 6 p.m. CT kickoff is going to feature a Vaught-Hemingway Stadium packed to the rafters, and Lane Kiffin’s teams are 34-3 at home since the start of the 2021 season. It’s going to be a story of two teams going in very opposite directions – one vying for its first College Football Playoff berth and the other with an interim coach and players looking to the transfer portal for next season.
But don’t completely count out Florida just yet. This is a team with the talent to hang with anyone as evidenced by a 4-point loss to Georgia and a 29-21 win over Texas earlier this season. It’s just an absolute crapshoot which Gators team will show up on Saturday, but I do not think for one second it will be intimidated by being on the road. Instead it will come down to if it can create turnovers and protect the ball.
Ole Miss on the other hand is coming off a 600+ yard offensive day against The Citadel where it was able to rest its starters for much of the game. Running back Kewan Lacy needs to find the end zone just one more time to set the single season Rebels rushing touchdown record and only 88 more yards to hit the 1,000 yard mark.
Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss is also nearing a milestone needing only 210 more offensive yards to eclipse the 3,000 yard plateau in total offensive yards. Additionally, this is the first 9-1 start for a Kiffin team in Oxford and the eighth in program history.
The last five seasons have been about as good as it gets for Ole Miss in program history. The only time to compare it to is the stretch from 1958-1962 when the team went a combined 48-5-1 . Since 2021, the Rebels so far have compiled a 48-14 record and need only one more win to have the best five season win total in program history. Will it be a blowout of the Gators to make that happen? Vegas seems to think so, but I can’t imagine there’s not a good many on the Florida sideline that wouldn’t love to spoil the party.
