1. It's a rivalry game. Yes, Dan has won all of the games that he is supposed to win, but a rivalry game is a little bit different than Houston. Things happen. Although, I do think that Dan will have us prepared. I'm not so sure that we could ever really say that under Croom when we played the Egg Bowl on the road.
2. It's on the road. See the last sentence above. But, it's tough to win on the road in the SEC. We have, however beat Florida on the road this year, so that's relevant because that means that our team knows that they can win on the road. But, it will still be tough.
3. Chris Relf's passing. Now, I will say that yes, Chris had his best game through the air in my opinion against Arkansas, and yes, I am aware that Ole Miss has had trouble in their secondary. But was this a "game of his life" deal with Relf? Or has he turned a corner? I'm optomistic that he has turned a corner, because last year about this time, he really stepped his game up as well. But there's no guarantee either. And yes, I and everyone else in America realize that Nix can't stop the zone read and we may very well be able to beat them with it again this year without much of a passing game, but if we can pass, it will help my blood pressure out immensely in the fourth quarter.
I've seen a couple of people say "The roles are the same as last year, just reversed". I say not so. Let's not forget- we were a better team last year than our record indicated, and last year Ole Miss had a very easy schedule when compared to ours. Also, last year we were competitive in most every game except for Auburn- and we had a lead in that game for a little while- and to NC Alabama. Arkansas put some garbage points up on us late last year, but we played much more respectably than the score indicated. This year, I would say our schedules are more similar in terms of difficulty- although ours is still more difficult- and we have simply performed better and more consistently.
Last year, even though we had a losing record, the team's attitude was still very good, and very optomistic. I don't know that you could say that about Ole Miss right now. They've had a really disappointing season, and they've had a lot of things go wrong, and you can tell by looking at their body language on the field. This is really all they've got to play for right now.