Gameday Guide: WSU at No. 4 Mississippi

In today's newsletter ...

• Into The Lion’s Den

• Critical Info

• Gamblin’

• This Week’s Podcast

• Key matchups

  • Mississippi vs. Georgia and Oklahoma

  • WSU’s defensive line vs. Trinidad Chambliss’ legs

• What I’ll be watching for

  • Keeping it competitive

• What you can watch for: Gameday Bingo!

• Other games of interest

  • Game of the day

  • Next opponent

  • Opponent after that

  • Late Night Sicko Special

Into The Lion’s Den

Fresh off a bye, the Cougars find themselves embarking on what will certainly be the toughest pair of games they’ll face all season: At No. 4 Mississippi and at No. 19 Virginia in back-to-back weeks. A function of WSU needing to piece together a schedule in its final year of conference purgatory, there’s nothing ideal about playing in the eastern time zone on consecutive Saturdays in October, to say nothing about the quality of opponents.

Mississippi began the season ranked 21 and has ripped off five straight to begin the year, culminating with a win over then-No. 4 LSU two weeks ago that has propelled them up the rankings. They, too, are coming off a bye.

There’s not really a straightforward case to be made for WSU’s chances. Ole Miss is very good; they’ve been pulling in top 20 recruiting classes for years under coach Lane Kiffin. The Cougars have already shown that they can be very bad with a stopgap roster loaded with FCS transfers. Besides the game being played in an exceedingly hostile environment, it’s going to kick off at 12:45 p.m. ET — or, 9:45 a.m body clock time for the players.

Which is all to say … well, everything is sort of stacked up against WSU.

That doesn’t mean we don’t hope for the itty bitty chance that WSU pulls off the upset. It just means we go into it with eyes wide open knowing what the probabilities say about the Cougs’ chances of winning the game and think about other ways we might enjoy the contest if it goes sideways.

Critical Info

• Game time: 9:45 a.m. PT

• Location: Vaught-Hemingway Stadium — Oxford, Mississippi

• Weather forecast at kickoff: 76 degrees and sunny, slight breeze, 50% humidity

• How to watch: SEC Network

• How to listen: WSUCougars.com

• Live stats: StatBroadcast 

Gamblin’

Consensus via VegasInsider.com.

Trends: Mississippi is 4-1 ATS, while WSU is 2-3. Combined, the teams have gone over the number in 6 out of 10 games.

Predictive model probabilities: 3% to win, 51% to cover (at +32)

This Week’s Podcast

(In case you missed it!)

Key matchups

Mississippi vs. Georgia and Oklahoma

OK, hear me out …

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