After entering the polls this week, the California Golden Bears will put their unbeaten record and no. 23 ranking on the line this week as they travel to face the Ole Miss Rebels. Kickoff is set for noon EST on Saturday, September 21 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Mississippi. The game can be seen on ESPNU.
Oddsmakers list the Rebels as 2-point favorites at home over the visiting Golden Bears. The over/under for the game is set at 45 points. Be sure to check out a full this of this week’s college football betting odds.
The turnaround at Cal under Justin Wilcox has continued in 2019. The Bears went to a bowl game last year and have carried that momentum into this season, starting the year 3-0. That record includes a 20-19 road win over Washington two weeks ago. The Golden Bears followed up that win by holding serve against a good North Texas team last week.
Before heading back to a Pac-12 schedule that includes four ranked teams in their next six games, the Bears have a rare road trip to SEC country this week. This game won’t have an impact on Cal sitting atop the Pac-12 North standings at the moment. However, they don’t want to lose the momentum they’ve built up early in the season with such a challenging schedule ahead.
Meanwhile, the Rebels have done well to put their season-opening loss to Memphis behind them. Ole Miss has won the last two weeks over Arkansas and Southeast Louisiana. Admittedly, those aren’t exactly quality wins. But for a program that hasn’t been to a bowl game since 2015, it’s a good step in the right direction and wins the Rebels needed to have if they’re going to get to a bowl game in 2019.
One could argue that a home game against Cal is also a game Ole Miss needs to win if they expect to reach a bowl game this year. The Rebels still have four more ranked teams on their schedule after facing Cal, including three top-10 opponents. That means Ole Miss has little margin for error moving forward. It’s vital that they hold serve at home this week.
Of course, these two teams met in Berkeley two seasons ago when the Golden Bears held serve at home, winning 27-16. Both Wilcox and Ole Miss head coach Matt Luke were early in their tenure at that point, making this a good litmus test for both programs to see how far they’ve come in the past two years.
The Golden Bears are in a tough spot because this game will kick off at 9 a.m. on the west coast, so it’ll feel early for them and they might start slowly. But I’ll almost always take Cal as an underdog. I don’t trust their offense to score enough points to cover as a favorite. But the Cal defense makes them a great team to pick as an underdog. Also, I remain unconvinced by Ole Miss, even after back-to-back wins. I’ll lean toward Cal to win a close game on the road.
I have some concerns about the Ole Miss offense having success against the Cal defense. For what it’s worth, Ole Miss offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez was 3-0 against Cal while he was the head coach at Arizona. But the personnel with the Rebels is a little different. He also never faced the Golden Bears after Wilcox became the head coach and built Cal into one of the best defensive teams in the Pac-12.
Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral is very much a work in progress. He looked good against Arkansas and Southeast Louisiana, but he had a horrible game in the season opener against Memphis, whose defense is a little closer to what the Rebels will face against Cal. The Ole Miss running game was also a little sluggish in that game despite picking up the past two weeks. The Rebels also don’t have a reliable receiver outside of Elijah Moore. No one else on the roster has more than five catches in three games. I expect the Golden Bears to clamp down on Moore and dare Corral to throw it elsewhere.
To be fair, it’s hard to expect much out of the Cal offense. Chase Garbers is not a reliable quarterback throwing the ball. He was also sacked six times last week and three times the previous week against Washington. But the Bears do have a viable rushing attack, in part because Garbers uses his legs well. I’m also a little skeptical of the Ole Miss defense. They’ve been a little better than expected. However, Memphis had success running the ball against them, which makes me think Cal will be able to do the same.
Honestly, I think this game will unfold a lot like the Ole Miss season opener against Memphis. Unless the Rebels can somehow unlock the Cal defense, it will be a low-scoring defensive battle. In that kind of game, the Ole Miss defense will blink before the Cal defense does. In an ugly defensive battle, I like the Golden Bears to prevail because that’s the kind of game that Cal knows how to win.