Ole Miss vs. Arkansas Critical For Pecking Order of SEC West, Perception of Both Programs

If Saturday taught us anything in the SEC, it's that Ole Miss and Arkansas currently don't have the roster talent to compete for an SEC title, but that doesn't mean 2021 will be unsuccessful for either program.

The Rebels and Razorbacks were both blown out on the road last weekend by the two teams who are in the catbird seat when it comes to reaching the SEC title this season: Alabama and Georgia. Arkansas was shut out in its contest, and Ole Miss didn't fare much better, falling 42-21 in Tuscaloosa.

When Lane Kiffin and Sam Pittman took over their respective programs prior to last season, the outlook in both Oxford and Fayetteville was grim for the football future on both campuses. In less than two years, however, both Ole Miss and Arkansas are ranked in the AP Top 25 and have a real shot of competing for the second spot in the SEC West come the end of the regular season.

Is this enough, or should the goal each season be to reach Atlanta? The answer is multifaceted.

In short, yes, an SEC team's goal each year should be to reach the title game in Atlanta which, these days, likely earns you a bid in the College Football Playoff. In reality, however, college football isn't a sport of parity in the modern era, and there are only a handful of teams that have a realistic shot of reaching the playoff in a given season. Sure, on paper any Power Five team and a select few Group of Five teams could make their way into the playoff if the dominoes were to fall properly, but as history has continued to repeat itself, we've continued to see names like Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Georgia reach the sport's final four tournament.

This year, there appears to be more parity than other seasons with Iowa and Penn State both residing in the AP's top four as this column is written, but the point still stands: in this sport, it's hard to dethrone a giant, and it takes a lot of work to get to that point. Obviously, Ole Miss and Arkansas hope to reach that point sooner rather than later, but they aren't there yet.

While both Ole Miss and Arkansas have the "goal" of reaching the SEC title game each year, most fans likely entered the 2021 campaign holding expectations for more growth towards that ultimate goal than actually reaching Atlanta this season. Still, that doesn't mean that disappointment is inevitable.

While college football does not have a lot of parity as far as its championship is concerned, the expectations for each season vary wildly from conference to conference and team to team. If you had told an Ole Miss or Arkansas fan at the end of the 2019 season that they'd have a top-15 program with a chance to finish in the top half of the SEC West in 2021, they would have jumped at the opportunity. Even after results that neither fanbase wanted last Saturday, that should still be the very-attainable goal this season: grow your program and take a noticeable step forward.

Here's where we reach the meat of the matter concerning this coming Saturday. The winner between Ole Miss and Arkansas has a leg up in the "arms race" that both rebuilding programs have found themselves in. Even though Ole Miss and Arkansas are different places with different staffs and recruiting bases, watching how both programs climb out of the hole they were in two years ago is interesting since they both made coaching changes at the same time and play in the same conference and division. As long as this program rebuild transpires, Ole Miss and Arkansas will be linked due to the timeframe in which their coaching changes took place, and they will be compared each season as a result.

If nothing else, that provides some talking points for a game that has already had plenty of weird occurrences during its 21st century history. Neither the Rebels nor Razorbacks are likely to play for an SEC title this season, but there is still a lot to play for, and both programs have a chance to make a statement over the other one on Saturday in Oxford.

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