As a first-year member of the media, I got a chance to watch all 14 teams and see the progression or digression of their season. We’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks play well this year, and we’ve also seen a lot play poorly.

Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott and Ole Miss’ Bo Wallace present the most interesting quarterback matchup in the SEC during rivalry week.

This is Wallace’s last regular-season game and he gets a chance to crush Mississippi State’s playoff hopes. Wallace and the Rebels started the season off so hot and they looked almost unbeatable. They had just knocked off Alabama is convincing fashion. Then they traveled to Death Valley (the real Death Valley) and were upset. Then they lost again to Auburn. Not only did they lose the game by a mere few inches, but they lost their best offensive player, Laquan Treadwell.

Then Ole Miss ran into the hottest team in the country, Arkansas, and got dismantled, 30-0. Wallace didn’t have his best game, although he threw for 235 yards before he was taken out with an ankle injury. However, two red zone picks changed the momentum of the game and ultimately the outcome.

The ankle injury is really tough on a quarterback because we have to plant on that foot to get some zip on the ball. You can bet your bottom dollar that Bo is gonna play this game. Adrenaline will kick in and he won’t even feel the pain. Rivalry games will bring that out in a player.

Prescott was the midseason Heisman Trophy frontrunner and the Bulldogs were the top-ranked team in the land. A few mediocre performances later and he’s no longer the frontrunner for the trophy. The Bulldogs sit at No. 4 in the playoff race after losing to Alabama.

This game, Prescott doesn’t get to play against a pushover defense. He gets to face arguably the best defense in the entire country in the Ole Miss Rebels. Dan Mullen had the Bulldogs offense looking like they were back on track after they crushed Vanderbilt 51-0. That was a much needed outcome and I think that definitely gave Dak and that offense a boost of confidence. As a quarterback, confidence is probably the most important thing. When you have a quarterback that has confidence, you have a much better offense.

That’s one thing that we’ve seen throughout this season with these two quarterbacks. Their confidence has been at all-time highs, and vice versa. I can tell you one thing, these guys will be amped up like never before for this game.

This game is no doubt going to be a hard-hitting, trash-talking, intense game. I can’t wait to watch it. I feel like it has lost some of its luster because Ole Miss has sort of fallen apart lately, but we see time and time again that anything can happen in rivalry games. One thing is for sure, this game will be won by whichever quarterback has the better game.