No. 15 Ole Miss Travels to Nashville to Take on Vandy

Despite the records of the two schools coming into the only SEC matchup this weekend, both teams are going to leave everything on the field.

The No. 15 ranked Rebels opened up this season with a 35-13 victory over Boise State while the Vanderbilt Commodores were not as lucky, losing to Temple University 37-7. That was Temple’s first win over an SEC school since the 1930s.
Even though both teams are from different SEC divisions, they play one another as longstanding foes every season. Saturday’s game will be the 89th meeting in the rivalry, and the Rebels lead the all time series at 48-38-2.

“They tend to get up extremely high for us, and it means a lot being in such close proximity and recruiting a lot of the same kids in the Tennessee area that we recruit in. So it means certainly a lot to both programs,” Freeze said during Wednesday’s SEC coaches’ teleconference.

This season, the game will take place at LP FIeld, the NFL stadium and home of the Tennessee Titans, instead of playing at Vanderbilt Stadium where the Rebels had success to close out 2013 season with a 25-17 score in the Music City Bowl.

“This will be my first experience playing (Vandy) there,” Freeze said of playing in LP Field. “In our bowl game (the 2013 Music City Bowl), we certainly traveled well to that field, and our fans always travel so I expect that we’ll have a good representation there.”

In the first two seasons of the coach Hugh Freeze era the games have really come down to the wire. Last season was the first time in four years for Ole Miss to defeat Vandy 39-35 in a down-to-the-wire game after Jeff Scott scored the winning touchdown to open the season. During Coach Freeze’s first season in 2012, the Rebels dropped a one-point heartbreaker to the Commodores 27-26.

“We’ve had two phenomenal games with them, and when I was an assistant here had some good ones also,” Freeze said of playing Vandy as a coach at Ole Miss. “It’s been very competitive and they’ve always played us tough up there, for whatever reason.”

Adam Brown is the sports editor of HottyToddy.com he can be reached at adam.brown@hottytoddy.com.