No college football conference can create crying memes like the Southeastern Conference. Week in and week out, its brutal schedule can end championship dreams as easily as it can cultivate them.

Ole Miss and Tennessee can look ahead and attest.

The Rebels have the toughest first month of the college football season. Only Wofford breaks up a brutal slate of Florida State, Georgia and angry Alabama, which has lost two straight to the Rebels.

The Rebels’ first seven games are no joke, a bye following Memphis on Oct. 1, but then back-to-back road games at Arkansas and LSU.

Breaking it down in smaller pieces, if Ole Miss, which has legitimate questions around a versatile offensive line and a new-look secondary, beats Florida State, Alabama and Georgia, playoff hopes could easily come crashing down with road losses at Arkansas and LSU.

Taking national implications out, those two road games could make or break hopes for the SEC title game in Atlanta, where Ole Miss is still trying to get for the first time.

Arkansas has been the thorn in Hugh Freeze’s side. It was a 30-0 drubbing in 2014 and a wild 53-52 overtime win in Oxford last season that effectively ended any title hopes the Rebels may have had. Get over that hump and get ready for Heisman favorite Leonard Fournette seven days later in Baton Rouge.

It makes the “one game at a time” coachspeak less cliché. One mistake and a season can literally go from an SEC title shot in Atlanta to facing Tulsa on Dec. 26 in Shreveport.

According to the NCAA method, the Rebels have the third-toughest schedule in the country behind LSU and Arkansas, two of the teams in their early path. Those rankings are based on the win-loss records of last season’s opponents, a .662 win percentage for Ole Miss opponents.

But another SEC school has room to think it has the tougher opening seven games. Tennessee ranks 27th in the country according to the NCAA strength of schedule method, last season’s opponents with a .582 win percentage.

Tennessee is arguably more hyped than Ole Miss, and that can partly be seen in the early Coaches Poll rankings where the Vols are No. 10 and the Rebels are No. 12. Look past the Volunteers’ first three games against Appalachian State, Virginia Tech and Ohio – Virginia Tech the exception – and Tennessee isn’t walking into the championship picture.

In a game where both could be 3-0, Tennessee hosts Florida in a crucial SEC East game that should be as hyped as any early game in the SEC season. Tennessee then goes to Georgia, which will have either a win or loss to Ole Miss on its résumé, before back-to-back games at Texas A&M and vs. Alabama.

Texas A&M could feasibly be 5-0 at the time, and depending on the progression of transfer quarterback Trevor Knight, may be rising up the polls itself. Amazing how it changes an East team’s outlook when Alabama is one of its West opponents.

Looking at either schedule is a deflating look at how brutal the SEC is. It can be on your side as a ticket to the College Football Playoff, but at the same time there are hurdles that no other conference can claim.

Which has the toughest road? Being in the West gets Ole Miss the nod, but with Tennessee’s tough path, not by much.