Kentucky won’t be getting the same Ole Miss team that escaped Lexington with a win two years ago. And vice versa.

A lot’s changed for both teams since Ole Miss escaped Lexington with a 42-41 win over Kentucky nearly two years ago.

The Rebels were in their first season under Lane Kiffin, and they needed every last second, and a bit of luck, to sneak past the then-ascending Wildcats. Actually, the game went to overtime. If not for a missed Kentucky extra point, they might still be playing. 

Neither defense could really get a stop.

Fast-forward to the present and Ole Miss and Kentucky are each 4-0 through a month of play in 2022. They’ve each gone 15-3 in their last 18 games. The only SEC teams with better records over that span are Alabama and Georgia — a pair of recent national champions. 

At this point, Ole Miss and Kentucky are jockeying for position atop the conference and eyeing Saturday’s showdown at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN as an opportunity to gauge if they’re truly the contenders they fashion themselves to be.

Kentucky is ranked No. 7 in the country by the Associated Press. Ole Miss is No. 14. 

“I would have taken that,” Kiffin said Monday, during his weekly press conference. “I normally say we have high expectations and always want to do better, but, man, that’s a pretty good number. Mark (Stoops, Kentucky head coach) might say the same thing, especially playing in the SEC.

Kiffin was sporting a RealTree hoodie of the same design as the alternate helmets the program rolled out for Kentucky on Monday.

He added, “But every season’s independent, every game’s independent. We’ve got a lot of good pieces, as we’ve seen. As frustrating as parts of the (35-27 Ole Miss win over Tulsa) were, it’s better to be frustrated where you see pieces where, at times, we played really special on offense. We played really special on defense and special teams. That’s the good part. 

“We’ve all been around teams where you feel kind of helpless on one side of the ball — like it isn’t going to matter what we do, we’re going to struggle over there. That’s the good part of it. We’ve got a chance to be really good, but a lot of things have to happen.”

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Ole Miss was mostly living on a hope and a prayer defensively in 2020.

The Rebels are more than settled now. 

Granted, they snapped an eight-game streak of holding their opponents to 21 points or less with an uninspiring effort against Tulsa, and Kentucky — featuring Will Levis, a currently-projected first-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft, and Chris Rodriguez, the SEC’s leading returning rusher — will undoubtedly be their greatest challenge to date.

But they had been ranked in the Top 25 in 10 separate defensive categories, and nose guard JJ Pegues, a transfer from Auburn, is expected to return after sitting out against Tulsa due to injury. Khari Coleman, arguably the team’s best pass-rusher, and himself a transfer but from TCU, could be back, too, though he’s further away than Pegues.

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Even more, Ole Miss has finally settled its months-long quarterback battle.

The job is Jaxson Dart’s moving forward. The USC transfer has started three of the first four games, and Kiffin said Saturday Luke Altmyer is the backup.

“I really like that we didn’t have the one disaster play,” Kiffin said, when assessing Dart from the win over the Golden Hurricane. “That’s growth because he’d had that in the previous games, where there’s one significant play you want to take back, especially the two interceptions. That was really good to see. Managed the game well at the end — situation of staying in bounds to end the game. 

“We have such high standards, and myself, with that position that we sometimes forget how young they are and how inexperienced. Even this morning watching this Kentucky game from two years ago, (which) would be Matt’s (Corral) second game with us, even though he’s played for a while, you see him make really good plays but miss some throws, miss some reads. It didn’t happen as much last year.

“It’s a reminder that there’s a reason experience is important.”

Here’s everything else Kiffin had to say to reporters, in a video provided by Ole Miss Sports Production.