No. 13 Missouri heads to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday for a ranked SEC clash with No. 9 Ole Miss, and the matchup comes with plenty on the line for both teams.
Each side already has one loss, and the road ahead is brutal. Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma - fresh off its upset of Texas - still remain for both teams later in the season, while Missouri also has No.
15 Kentucky on its schedule. Drop this one, and the damage to either team’s playoff hopes would be hard to ignore.
The game also brings a familiar return for three Missouri players. Quarterback Austin Simmons, wide receiver Cayden Lee and cornerback Chris Graves Jr. are all set to go back to Oxford for the first time since transferring to Missouri last January.
Lee and Simmons have become central figures in Missouri’s offense, and their production helps set up one of the biggest contrasts in this matchup: both teams can score, but they get there in very different ways.
The quarterbacks are nearly identical on paper. Simmons has thrown for 1,434 yards with 14 touchdowns and 8.7 yards per attempt, while Chambliss has 1,435 passing yards, 11 touchdown passes and 8.2 yards per attempt. Missouri has played one more game, which makes the comparison even tighter.
The separation shows up in the details. Simmons has only one interception.
Chambliss has four. But Chambliss has also been a real factor as a runner, piling up 113 rushing yards and five touchdowns, while Simmons has 26 rushing yards and no scores on the ground.
That rushing edge has mattered for Ole Miss, especially with star back Kewan Lacy dealing with injuries for much of the season. Lacy is off the injury report heading into Saturday.
Missouri’s backfield has been shaped by a different issue. Ahmad Hardy, the Tigers’ star running back, has been sidelined after suffering a gunshot wound before the season. In his place, Jamal Roberts has stepped up with 828 rushing yards and eight touchdowns.
Roberts has also become Missouri’s third-leading receiver, and that’s a good snapshot of how the Tigers operate through the air. Cayden Lee and Donovan Olugbode are the only Missouri players with more than 100 receiving yards and multiple touchdown catches. Along with Roberts, they’re also the only Tigers with double-digit receptions.
Lee has been Simmons’ top target, which fits. The two were in the same recruiting class at Ole Miss and had already spent three seasons together before this reunion.
Lee has 42 catches for 616 yards and five touchdowns. Olugbode has been productive too, with 26 receptions for 407 yards and six touchdowns.
Ole Miss, meanwhile, spreads the ball around much more. Deuce Alexander is the Rebels’ only player with multiple receiving touchdowns, and he leads the team with 32 receptions, 503 yards and five scores.
Behind him, Traylon Ray, tight end Caleb Odom and Horatio Fields all have 17 catches apiece, with 231, 230 and 190 receiving yards, respectively, and each has one touchdown. Caleb Cunningham has also chipped in 10 catches for 115 yards.
With two offenses built in such different ways, Saturday’s ranked matchup has the feel of a game that could open up fast.
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Missouri brings enough offensive pieces to make the trip interesting, with Austin Simmons, Cayden Lee and Jamal Roberts all standing out statistically. For Ole Miss, the focus is as much about shoring up the defense as it is about getting enough from Kewan Lacys health to keep the offense balanced. The setup points to a competitive game, but for the Rebels it is also the kind of test that can expose whether the early-season progress is real or just surface level. [Read more 🡒]