Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M Is SEC West Elimination Game

Last week's slate of SEC games is going to be tough to top, but the lone meeting between ranked teams in all of college football this weekend will have huge ramifications in the SEC West title race.

While Texas A&M (5-1, 2-1 SEC) vs. Ole Miss (5-2, 2-1 SEC) doesn't have the same cachet as Alabama at Texas A&M or Florida at LSU, it carries enormous weight in the race for the SEC Championship Game.

It's an elimination game, plain and simple.

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

For the visiting Aggies, it will be the first game they've played outside of the state of Texas this season, and will present another tough test for a defense that—when you look beyond Derrick Henry's 236 rushing yards—actually played pretty well last week vs. Alabama.

Defensive coordinator John Chavis' crew had 15 tackles for losses last week vs. the Crimson Tide, successfully made and executed adjustments and gave the offense a chance to claw back into a game that began to look very similar to last season's 59-0 shellacking in Tuscaloosa early on.

As Gabe Bock of TexAgs.com noted on Twitter, the "bend but don't break" philosophy was prevalent on Saturday afternoon at Kyle Field.

That's great news for Texas A&M.

Sure, quarterback Kyle Allen and his three pick-sixes are concerning, and the inability to establish the ground game against Alabama wasn't ideal.

But A&M is built to win shootouts, and that's exactly what they'll see against the Rebels this weekend and perhaps the rest of the season save for the regular-season finale at LSU.

For Ole Miss, this game is not only a chance to hang on in the race to make their first SEC Championship Game ever, but a chance at redemption.

Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

The Rebels were shocked last week 37-24 at Memphis in what was one of the biggest wins in Memphis' history.

"There's something missing for sure and that's my responsibility," head coach Hugh Freeze said, according to Ole Miss' official site. "I thought we had a really good week of preparation and again, not to take anything away from Memphis. They're a good football team and I don't want anything to sound like I'm not saying that, but we're obviously not locked in totally."

They better lock it up quickly, because while the Memphis loss hurts in a big way, the Rebels still have plenty to play for. With one loss and a tiebreaker over Alabama in hand, Freeze's crew is still in a pretty solid spot in the West race. 

The problem, though, is that Ole Miss is a mess in a variety of ways right now. 

In what's been an ongoing problem under Freeze in Oxford, the running game is a mess. In conference games, they're averaging just 2.92 yards per carry for 104 yards per game, and the corps that consists of Jaylen Walton, Jordan Wilkins, Akeem Judd and Eugene Brazley simply can't pose enough of a threat to take pressure off of quarterback Chad Kelly in the passing game.

Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

The defense is beat up with injuries to linebacker C.J. Johnson and safety Tony Conner, the absence of corner Tee Shepard (who left the team) and the uncertainty of defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche, who left the Memphis game in the second quarter after suffering a head injury while playing running back.

Ole Miss will get star offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil back from his seven-game suspension this week, but also lost versatile center Robert Conyers for the year to a torn ACL, according to Hugh Kellenberger of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. If Ole Miss can't run the ball and star A&M defensive ends Myles Garrett and Daeshon Hall can pin their ears back all afternoon, will the return of Tunsil matter all that much?

There's a massive logjam near the top of the SEC West standings, with LSU being the only undefeated team and four having one conference loss or fewer.

You don't want to drop to the two-loss party, especially considering LSU looks much more balanced offensively now and Alabama is hitting its stride after beating Texas A&M last week in College Station.

It'll be a big one in Oxford on Saturday night.

The winner will still be in the mix, but it's hard to imagine a scenario in which the loser makes the SEC Championship Game.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Statistics are courtesy of cfbstats.com. 

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.