COLUMN: Let's Make Ole Miss vs. Tulane an Annual Meeting in Football
If you're going to do a home-and-home with a Group of Five opponent, the Ole Miss Rebels have found the right formula.
Many fans (judging by social media reaction) had grown tired of Ole Miss' traditional early-season game against the Memphis Tigers when they last met in 2019. When I was growing up, Ole Miss and Memphis always played one another in the first or second game of the season. For some of you, you may remember matchups between Ole Miss and "Memphis State," but those days are behind us for a while.
The argument against playing Memphis seems to stem from the "nothing-to-gain" mentality, meaning that, if you win, you've avoided disaster. If you lose, you've stumbled into said disaster, and in one sense, they're right. Memphis is not currently the level of Group of Five program that really provides an incentive to play in football if you're Ole Miss.
On top of that, Memphis is about an hour from Oxford, and proximity rivalries are cool, but Rebel fans go to (or live in) Memphis all the time. It's not that new of an experience.
Roll into 2023, however, and the stakes are different.
The Ole Miss defense had its way with Mercer on Saturday, but it faces a new test this week against Michael Pratt and Tulane.
© Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports
In previous seasons, Ole Miss might not have gained much as far as competition from Tulane (the Green Wave last knocked off Ole Miss in 1988), but now, the story is very different. Tulane had a historic season a year ago, knocking off Heisman winner Caleb Williams and the USC Trojans in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl to cap off an 11-2 season. Michael Pratt is back as the team's quarterback, and Willie Fritz turned down a job at Georgia Tech to stay in the Big Easy this offseason.
In short, Tulane looks like it will be solid again this fall.
To be fair, scheduling home-and-home series with Group of Five teams is a proverbial crapshoot oftentimes. These series are scheduled years in advance, so the powers that be have to ask the question: what does this provide to our fan base? If you're Ole Miss, a trip to New Orleans is always a positive for your fans.
New Orleans is within driving distance from Oxford, but it's not so close that it's a boring familiarity to fans in the North Mississippi area. It's also somewhat culturally-similar (on a larger scale) to Oxford, and when Ole Miss earns a berth in the Sugar Bowl, the French Quarter becomes a sea of red and blue.
Fans itch for the opportunity to get to New Orleans when they can, whether it be for a bowl game or, in this case, an early meeting with Tulane. The last time Ole Miss hit the road for a matchup with the Green Wave came in 2010 and 2012, both wins by the Rebels that were later vacated due to NCAA sanctions. Before that, it was 1997.
These two teams used to play more regularly than they do now, but it is my opinion that this meeting should become the new "Ole Miss vs. Memphis game." Your fans get a trip to New Orleans every other year, and with the new locations entering the SEC in 2024, your fan base would have a multitude of unique experiences on the horizon.
