The Ole Miss Rebels know exactly what's at stake on Saturday.
Big, bad Bama is headed to the Grove -- along with ESPN's "College GameDay" for the very first time -- and it's been years since expectations were this lofty in Oxford, Mississippi.
On Saturday, the college football world will have its eye on the state of Mississippi with No. 6 Texas A&M playing at No. 12 Mississippi State about 95 miles south of 11th-ranked Ole Miss' clash with No. 3 Alabama.
That means the Rebels have a lot to prove in front of a whole lot of people.
Two weeks ago, Mississippi State made a statement with its first win against LSU since 1999 with an impressive 34-29 win inside Tiger Stadium. Now, it's the Rebels' turn.
"We've been building toward this, not just this game, but this season," linebacker Denzel Nkemdiche said. "We're all brothers in arms who play for each other and we believe in each other and we're ready for this."
That No. 11 ranking shows how far the program has come under third-year coach Hugh Freeze, but it also stands as a status symbol that many people just aren't sure the Rebels currently deserve.
If the Rebels want to be taken seriously, they need to be competitive, yes, but they probably have to win, too, because it's very easy to throw shade at the preseason hype machine.
"In this room, we expect to compete Saturday," said Freeze, who is 19-11 at Ole Miss. "We expect to have a chance to win it. I know our kids feel that way. I know our coaches feel that way. I don't know that we will -- I have no idea what the scoreboard will say at the end -- but I expect our kids to go and compete and have a shot."
But we've seen this story before. Ole Miss has some ruthless demons it's looking to exorcise this weekend, including stopping a 10-game losing streak to Alabama and erasing last year's 25-0 loss to the Tide after a 3-0 start. The recent history at Ole Miss hasn't exactly been nice when the expectations have been high.
Remember Sept. 24, 2009? Rebels fans sure do. That's when No. 4 Ole Miss, fresh off that remarkable 2008 season that featured an upset of eventual national champion Florida and hearing all sorts of BCS chatter, imploded on national television with an ugly 16-10 loss to an unranked South Carolina team that finished the year 7-6.
Looking for more painful memories Rebels fans? How about Nov. 22 2003, when the 15th-ranked Rebels lost a heartbreaker to No. 3 LSU at home? A win away from their first trip to the SEC championship game in Atlanta, the Rebels watched automatic kicker Jonathan Nichols miss two field goals and star quarterback Eli Manning trip over a lineman while pulling away from his center to end the game.
LSU won 17-14.
A year prior, a 21st-ranked Ole Miss squad was blown out 42-7 by No. 24 Alabama. And in 1999, on the cusp of a potential nine-win season for the first time since 1992, the Rebels (No. 23) walked out of Starkville, Mississippi, with a 23-20 loss to the 18th-ranked Bulldogs.
Over the past three seasons, the Rebels have gone a miserable 2-15 (.118) against teams that have finished the season nationally ranked in one of the final polls, including 0-9 against top-10 teams.
The jury is very much out on Ole Miss. This is a program that's history of national relevancy doesn't even register on the college football Richter scale anymore, recently had a shameful 16-game SEC losing streak and is still waiting to play in Atlanta for an SEC title.
However, the arrival of Freeze and the emergence of a historic 2013 recruiting class have brought hope -- and confidence -- to Oxford. A win on Saturday would move the Rebels from dark horse to legitimate contender.
"I tell the people that want us to win the SEC West every year, I don't know if that will ever happen, but I do know that we can be good enough to compete every year and I think that's where we are right now," Freeze said.
The season certainly won't be over with a loss to Alabama, but the buzz around the Rebels would dissipate, especially with the rest of a fearsome group of SEC West opponents still lurking on the schedule.
The Rebels don't care about the buzz, but they care about their own momentum. They care about living up to their own expectations and winning the games they expect to be in.
"It's daylight (and) dark from our sophomore year when going down to Baton Rouge and just playing with LSU was a moral victory," quarterback Bo Wallace said. "Now it's ‘We have to win these games, we have to win these big games to take our program to the next level.'"