On Saturday afternoon, Ole Miss will become the first Mississippi team – ever – to compete in the NCAA FBS College Football Playoffs. 

We’ve got the Rebels vs. the Tulane Green Wave, 2:30 p.m., at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. It’s time to put aside all the game’s peripheral aspects, of which there are so many. It’s time, finally, to forget Lane Kiffin and his messy exit from Oxford. It’s time to put aside the transfer portal – who’s staying and who’s leaving – at least until the new year. It’s time to stop talking about the movement of assistant coaches, too. It’s time, as coaches say, to spot the football.

It’s time to see which team, Tulane or Ole Miss, will advance to play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

Ole Miss, which comes in with an 11-1 record, is a 17-point favorite to win handily over Tulane, the American Athletic Conference champion that comes in at 11-2.

That point spread, it would seem, is based primarily on the fact that, when the same two teams played on the same field 12 weeks ago, Ole Miss smashed Tulane 45-10. That game was every bit as one-sided as the score would indicate. The Sept. 20 game wasn’t a case of Ole Miss capitalizing on Tulane turnovers or making several big plays in the kicking game. It was no fluke. The turnovers were even. Tulane threw an interception; Ole Miss lost a fumble. The Rebels nearly doubled the Green Wave in yardage. Indeed, Ole Miss punted only once. The Rebels won nearly all the big downs. Tulane converted just six of 15 third downs and zero of three fourth downs. 

“We played rotten, they played good,” Tulane coach Jon Sumrall said earlier in the week. “They are clearly a big-time team, but I want us to play like a better version of ourselves. I think we’re a better team, but we gotta go prove it.”

There were some extenuating circumstances the average fan probably did not realize at the time. For one, Tulane quarterback Jake Retzlaff, a transfer from Brigham Young University, was making only his fourth start after arriving at Tulane in July. For whatever reason – and the Ole Miss defense was a big part of it – Retzlaff played the worst game he would play all season. The numbers were ugly: He completed only five of 17 passes for 56 yards. He did run eight times for 51 yards, but that was more rushing yardage than any of his running backs.

One reason for that is that redshirt freshman running back Jamauri McClure carried the ball only three times for Green Wave in that earlier game. Since then, he has emerged as Tulane’s best back. He ran for 94 yards on just 10 carries against Florida Atlantic on Nov. 15, for 122 yards on 17 carries against Temple on Nov. 22 and for 121 yards on 22 carries against North Texas in the AAC championship game on Dec. 5. McClure averaged nearly seven yards per carry.

No doubt, his emergence has greatly enhanced Retzlaff’s play, which has been remarkably better than what he showed back on Sept. 20. Retzlaff has thrown for 2,862 yards and 14 touchdowns (vs. six interceptions). Perhaps more impressively, he has run for 610 yards and and 16 touchdowns. He really is a dual threat.

An even bigger reason for Tulane’s offensive woes in the earlier meeting was a key injury in the offensive line. Left tackle Derrick Graham, a fifth-year senior and a transfer from Texas A&M, did not play against Ole Miss because of an ankle injury. That caused a wholesale shuffling of the offensive line with guard Shadre Hurst moving out to tackle, and a back-up guard moving into the lineup. Any coach at any level of football can tell you how disruptive an injury to a key offensive lineman can be. It changes what you can do on offense. Against Ole Miss, Tulane could not do much of anything.

Pete Golding summed it up this way: “This is not Week 4 Tulane,” he said. “They are playing at a much higher level.”

High enough to make up for a five-touchdown deficit in the earlier game?

“We’re playing a conference champion that beat the ACC champion,” Golding said.

Still, if Ole Miss is focused and ready to play – despite all the peripheral distractions – the Rebels are surely the more talented team. But keep in mind, every week in college football, 17-point underdogs – and even higher – win football games. 

So, spot the ball. Here we go…