Ole Miss or Missouri: Which team should receive a New Year’s Six bowl berth?
OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss has officially finished the 2023 regular season and is waiting to be selected for a bowl game, but whether that will be a New Year’s Six (NY6) game or not is still up for debate.
In the College Football Playoff rankings on November 21, the Rebs (10-2, 6-2 SEC) were ranked No. 11 behind the No. 9 Missouri Tigers (10-2, 6-2), meaning Mizzou could potentially take a NY6 bid away from Ole Miss. The newest College Football Playoff Committee rankings will be released tonight, November 28, so we’ll bring you that when it happens.
In the meantime, I have seen several debates as of late as to which team deserves to be ranked higher, Ole Miss or Missouri, and which should get a NY6 bowl game. For me, the answer is simple. Before I give you my opinion, let’s break down the stats and resumes of both squads.
Missouri
The Tigers lost to Georgia by nine instead of 35 as did a banged up Rebel squad. Missouri also beat Arkansas by 34, while Ole Miss only beat the Razorbacks by seven. Mizzou holds wins over Kansas State and Tennessee, which were ranked opponents at the time; however, both of those teams are now unranked.
If we are looking at margins of victory or actual losses, it’s worth pointing out that Mizzou defeated a 4-8 Middle Tennessee team by only four points at home. And in terms of losses, it was LSU (49-39) who won in Missouri and Georgia (30-21) who won in Athens.
According to ESPN, Mizzou is ranked 29th in strength of schedule.
Ole Miss
The Rebels hold two ranked wins against LSU (55-49) and Tulane (37-20), with Ole Miss’ losses coming on the road against Alabama (24-10) and Georgia (52-17). Both the Tide and the Bulldogs are in the top 10 and will play in the SEC championship game this Saturday.
Another interesting comparison to draw is the matchup between Mizzou and the Memphis Tigers. Mizzou won at home, 34-27, but two weeks later Tulane defeated Memphis on the road, 31-21. As mentioned previously, Ole Miss beat Tulane by 17 in New Orleans.
One key metric to look at is the Rebels are ranked No. 5 in the nation in strength of schedule. Missouri, as mentioned above, is 24 spots lower in that area.
Who should get the New Year’s Six game?
In my opinion, it is evident Ole Miss has a more admirable resume than Missouri. Fans can compare who won and lost by more points all they want, and yes, Mizzou lost to Georgia by less and beat Arkansas by a greater amount, but at the end of the day, if you look at common opponents, Ole Miss beat LSU and Mizzou lost to them by 10.
That is the only head-to-head game that has differentiated the two programs, and as it stands, Ole Miss has two ranked wins over Missouri’s zero. As I said, Ole Miss is fifth in strength of schedule, and Mizzou is 29.
Though changing the ranks can be difficult for voters, Missouri’s wins against Tennessee and Kansas State have become much less impressive as the season has gone on, and at the same time, Ole Miss’ wins against No. 13 LSU and No. 17 Tulane are now more noteworthy.
Tulane will have a chance to defeat No. 25 SMU in the American Athletic Conference championship this Saturday and appears headed for its own NY6 game as the highest-ranked Group of 5 team.
Strength of Record
We’ve noted the Rebels’ have a much higher strength of schedule than Missouri (No. 5 vs. No. 29), but there’s another metric that is newer, one that is also important to examine, and that is Strength of Record (SOR).
What is SOR? The strength of record reflects the quality of a team’s wins and the quality of its losses. It’s a next-level approach to the strength of schedule. According to ESPN, the SOR reflects the chance that an average Top 25 team would have a team’s record or better, given the schedule.
This metric is another way of using numbers to evaluate a team compared to another — which is exactly what we’re doing with Ole Miss and Missouri.
Being a Rebel fan makes this much easier to write about, but between wins, losses, strength of schedule, strength of record, and overall resume, the Rebs have the upper hand in almost every category.
After the Egg Bowl, head coach Lane Kiffin gave his opinion on the Rebels’ worthiness for a New Year’s Six game.
“So I would like to see the other 10-2 people and their losses, and I would doubt their losses are going to be harder ones than these two places to play because Georgia is about 30-0 there (in Athens) the last 30 games, and Alabama has now lost 2 or whatever in 52 home games with Texas being the second after (losing to) Joe Burrow’s LSU team…(looking at the) analytics, that’s got to be the two hardest places to win right now.”
Lane Kiffin
Truly an Amazing job players!! @OleMissFB pic.twitter.com/8GuC294Gm5
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) November 27, 2023
What’s Next?
We’ll find out the next-to-last CFP rankings tonight and then on Sunday, December 3rd, all of the bowl games will be assigned, as well as the final rankings for 2023.
Tune in to find out if Mizzou keeps its spot or if the Rebels can take control. Hotty Toddy!
