ShareThisAll last week during Ole Miss' open date, the topic of discussion was being a vast underdog in the Rebels' home game Saturday against No. 2 Alabama.
"We've talked about it every day after practice," said Rebels sophomore flanker Ja-Mes Logan. "The QBs, the running backs, the receivers, all the skilled people, we all meet and talk about what we've got to do.
"We expect to be underdogs to everybody we play. It's nothing new."
Except for the fact that the Rebels are a 25-point underdog on their home field to the Crimson Tide. Until that hefty number was mentioned to Logan, he said he had no idea he and his teammates were almost a four-TD underdog.
"We can't control what other people think," Logan said. "It's going to be fun. It's always fun to play a top-five team."
Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt is 5-11 lifetime against top-five teams, going 1-4 since he moved to Oxford in 2008 after recording a 4-7 record when he coached Arkansas. He's 0-2 against Alabama when the Tide has been ranked, losing 22-7 to then-No. 3 'Bama in Oxford two seasons ago and 24-20 to the No. 2 Tide in Tuscaloosa in 2009.
Though Nutt has been someone who through the years has rallied his troops against impossible odds, he knows his 2-3 Rebels (0-2 in the SEC's Western Division) are really up against it this weekend in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, especially when he looks at Alabama's defense.
"They have a lot of experience, with that moxie and that confidence," Nutt said of the Tide's defense, which ranks in the top four nationally in five categories, including third in total defense (191.3 yards allowed) and first in scoring defense (7 ppg). "Watch the teams that play Alabama the last few weeks. Those quarterbacks haven't been (in games) very long (before getting knocked silly)."
AND YOUR NAME IS ...
Seven weeks into the season, and there could be six quarterbacks in the SEC starting this weekend who weren't starters when the season opened.
Two starters have fallen to injury -- Florida's John Brantley (leg) and Tennessee's Tyler Bray, who's out five to six weeks with a broken thumb on his throwing hand, an injury he suffered late in Saturday's 20-12 loss to Georgia.
Two other starters lost jobs because of stagnant offenses -- South Carolina's Stephen Garcia and Ole Miss' Barry Brunetti (though he has never really had a second chance after starting and playing just the first half in the season-opening loss to BYU).
A couple of others may lose their starting spots this week because of uninspired play -- Mississippi State's Chris Relf and Vanderbilt's Larry Smith.
While the loss of Brantley just before halftime of the Alabama game two Saturdays ago hurt Florida, the Gators (4-2) still have enough talent to get to seven or eight wins.
That's not the case with the Vols (3-2), who currently are second in the SEC in passing (thanks to Bray's 315.8 ypg) and dead last in rushing (84.8 yards per game). Tennessee's running game is so putrid that the top six running backs in the league are individually outgaining the Vols.
Also consider the fact that Tennessee has to start backup quarterback Matt Simms (who started last year's first eight games before being yanked in favor of Bray) against No. 1 LSU and its big-play defense on Saturday. It could be a long night in Neyland Stadium for the 15-point-underdog Vols.
"We have had some tough luck, and it will be doom and gloom if we don't correct some of the things that affect how we are playing," Tennessee second-year coach Derek Dooley said Monday. "If we put our head down and don't go out there and play the best we can play, it will be doom and gloom. We are going to get annihilated. But if we go out there and compete like we are capable of and not lose composure, then we will see what happens."
(Email rhiggins(at)commercialappeal.com.)
