Tennessee-Florida, Alabama-Ole Miss, Texas A&M-Mississippi St., Auburn-LSU all in Week 6 Vegas SEC Predictions
Vegas SEC Predictions Week 6
Game of the Week
No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide at No. 11 Ole Miss Rebels
Line: Alabama by 7
Here’s one we’ve been waiting for since the beginning of the season, a circled SEC game the first Saturday in October. Ole Miss came into the year with a lot of hype, and there schedule hinted they would be undefeated at this point, while Alabama came into the season being, well, Alabama and expected to be undefeated to this point as well. Now, the undefeated showdown that will test one team at least is going to happen, and it couldn’t be more exciting.
Coming off of a bye week, Alabama is not like the Alabama of years past. With Lane Kiffin as offensive coordinator, the Tide have decided to take more of an offense-heavy approach to the season, and Nick Saban seems perfectly fine with that. Blake Sims has looked like a Heisman candidate, Amari Cooper looks like a future NFL star, and the running game still looks deadly. This is a pro-style offense that looks like it can score at will, but don’t sleep on the other side. The defense still can be dominant, as it showed against Florida two weeks ago, and it’s gotten better as the season has gone on since struggling in that first game against West Virginia. To win this game on Saturday, it will be up to the offense to make enough plays that the defense is able to shut down the Rebels. If the offense falls into a funk, the Tide could be in trouble on the road.
Ole Miss, meanwhile, plays a dominating defense as well, and through four games it has looked as much like an SEC defense as any defense in all of college football. This group is fast, tough, and can shut down pro-style or spread offense. But it hasn’t seen Alabama’s offense yet. There are two keys to the Rebels winning the game. First, and most importantly, Bo Wallace and the offense can’t have any point in the game where they are like the way they were in the first half against Boise State or the first half against Memphis. The offense has to be a threat the entire time, and it cannot turn the ball over at any point. That is crucial to winning the game. Also, the defense simply needs to be as good as advertised. We finally get to test it against the Tide offense, and if it is what it has looked like so far, then winning the game is simply up to the offense and the home crowd.
Prediction
Ole Miss has sputtered early on offense against the two halfway decent teams it’s played, and that’s going to be what causes it to lose on Saturday. The Tide will force a couple of early turnovers and keep Hugh Freeze’s offense, led by Wallace, from mounting any sort of decent drive in the first half. Kiffin’s offense will catch the Rebels defense off-guard early to build a lead, and Ole Miss will never recover. This is still far from a finished product in Alabama, but the bye week will help, and although the offense will make quite a few mistakes, it will do enough with the support of the defense to build a big lead and maintain the lead throughout the game against the Rebels for a comfortable win. Sorry Ole Miss, reality is about to set in.
Alabama: 31 Ole Miss: 13