BET365     Sportsinteraction

Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Oxford, MS

Streaming: ABC

Mississippi +130 over LSU

7:30 PM EST. We've spent the entire week looking for somebody—anybody—who wants Ole Miss. We're still looking. Every tout, talking head, podcast expert and guy with a microphone seems to have LSU. The Tigers destroyed Clemson 51-10, Lane Kiffin is returning to Oxford as Public Enemy No. 1, Sam Leavitt is playing, and apparently LSU has already won the game sometime between College GameDay and kickoff. Fine. But when everybody is standing on the same side of the boat, we start wondering when the fucking thing is going to tip over. Ole Miss is a top-10 team, at home, getting a field goal, and you'd think we were recommending the Oxford High School junior varsity.

The buildup here has become completely insane. Tickets are north of $600. GameDay is coming. Security has been beefed up. Kiffin didn't merely leave Ole Miss; he took coaches, staff and players with him, and Oxford has spent months preparing for his return like Darth Vader is flying back into town. The emotion will be off the charts. But here's what nobody seems willing to consider: Can there be too much emotion? Ole Miss has been hearing about this game for nine months. Revenge Lane. Beat Lane. Boo Lane. Make Lane miserable. At some point you aren't preparing for a football game anymore; you're preparing for an exorcism. The Rebels don't get 10 points on the scoreboard because everyone in The Grove hates the visiting coach.

Meanwhile, LSU's warts have conveniently disappeared from the discussion. The Tigers gave up five sacks to Louisiana Tech and Leavitt has already thrown four interceptions, including three last week. But apparently none of that counts because LSU was "looking ahead." Isn't that convenient? Play great and you're a national-title monster. Play poorly and you were thinking about Ole Miss. Heads LSU wins, tails LSU was distracted. Ole Miss, meanwhile, has Trinidad Chambliss, Kewan Lacy and plenty of offensive firepower of its own. This isn't some helpless home dog praying the stadium carries it for four quarters. These guys can actually fucking play.

And that's what brings us back to the number. With everything surrounding this game—with LSU destroying Clemson, Kiffin knowing the Ole Miss personnel, Leavitt cleared to play and virtually the entire handicapping world seemingly lined up behind the Tigers—why is LSU only laying a field goal? If LSU is everything we're being told it is and Ole Miss is about to emotionally combust in front of its former coach, shouldn't this be LSU -5? -6? Maybe more? Instead, bookmakers are hanging the most seductive number imaginable on the team everybody already wants. We'll pass. Let everybody else pay $600 for a ticket, paint their face purple and gold and line up at the window with LSU. We'll take the team nobody wants, in the stadium where everybody wants blood, plus the field goal.

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