ATHENS — Ole Miss has been here before facing a more talented team on the road with a hostile crowd on hand.

Alabama beat the Rebels that September night in Tuscaloosa earlier this season, 24-10, but it was not exactly the same Ole Miss team

RELATED: Kirby Smart says Ole Miss a ‘helluva challenge’ Saturday night.

“They will tell you that learned a lot from the Alabama game in September when it was really loud and they struggled,” said Neal McCready, RebelGrove.com publisher and President of MPW Digital.

“They were not healthy that day; (Quinshon) Judkins was not healthy, Trey Harris the wide receiver from Louisiana Tech basically didn’t play, it was Caden Prieskorn’s first game after he missed most of camp and the first three games of the season, and he looked rusty.”

And yet, the Rebels led 7-3 after the first quarter in Bryant-Denny Stadium and led 7-6 at halftime before trailing 17-10 entering the fourth quarter.

This, with an uncelebrated collection of defensive talent that’s supposedly susceptible in the secondary.

“I think this is a potential big game for Carson Beck,” McCready said. “(Defensive coordinator) Pete Golding has been remarkable but … he doesn’t have a ton of NFL talent.”

The formula for an upset, per McCready is “you stay in it by using tempo and staying ahead.”

Missouri had a different approach and led early at Georgia and again in the third quarter before the Bulldogs came from behind for the fifth time in six SEC games.

There was a lot more breakdown of the Bulldogs’ game with the Rebels, along with the story of Kiffin staying at Ole Miss and some talk about what could happen with the head coaches at Alabama, Mississippi State and Arkansas: