Alabama traveled to Oxford in heavily unchartered territory, and not the good kind.

With 2 SEC losses on its ledger by Veteran’s Day.

With its national championship hopes having vanished.

With its SEC championship hopes gone, too, courtesy of LSU’s win at Arkansas that ended just before kickoff.

And with everyone who loves Crimson Tide football and hates it questioning where Nick Saban’s program exactly was in mid-November of 2022.

Carrying all that unwanted baggage into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday afternoon against an Ole Miss team that was ranked, rested coming off a bye, still had grand visions of an SEC West title and couldn’t care less about Alabama’s problems, it was hard to know what to expect out of the Crimson Tide.

Then the game started amid the shadows of The Grove, where the 11th-ranked Rebels hadn’t beaten the 10th-ranked Tide since 2014, in a ridiculously lopsided rivalry that Bama led 53-10-2 coming into Saturday.

And in an equally ridiculous twist of fate, LSU needed its hated rival turned best buddy, Alabama, to make it 54-10-2 if the Tigers were going to celebrate an SEC West title come Saturday night.

Thanks to more Bryce Young Magic and an opportunistic Tide defense that allowed just 7 points in the 2nd half, that celebration happened in Baton Rouge as the Crimson Tide outlasted the Rebels 30-24 in as competitive a game as the “SEC’s Most Southern Rivalry” hasn’t been since it began in 1894.

Alabama (8-2, 5-2 SEC) had its 7th straight win over Ole Miss (8-2, 4-2), Lane Kiffin couldn’t beat his former boss in Tuscaloosa, and the Rebels’ 14-game home-winning streak ended along with any chance of a trip to Atlanta.

On a frigid, 39-degree day in Oxford, Alabama was left out in the cold when it came to college football’s national landscape and even within the confines of the SEC conference. This was indeed unchartered territory for the Tide, and Saban’s 2-loss team played like it in a lethargic 1st quarter that spoke volumes about where it stood in the grand scheme of things.

Bama’s 1st 9 plays from scrimmage netted a whopping total of 13 yards, and naturally those 2 possessions ended with 2 punts.

And on its 3rd possession — after Ole Miss jumped in front 7-0 late in the 1st quarter after an 11-play, 68-yard drive that ended with Quinshon Judkins’ 1-yard TD run — things got worse for the reeling Tide.

Way worse.

On a 3rd-and-15, Young fittingly ran for his life on a scramble up the middle and also fittingly came up 1 yard short. Instead of punting and playing defense, Saban got a little desperate and went for it, or so the CBS announcers thought he was pretending to go for it because the quarter was coming to an end.

Nope.

Bama actually snapped the ball, and Young appeared surprised to see the ball coming at him. He tried to gain that 1 elusive yard but crashed right into the line of scrimmage. There was no gain, and now the Rebels had the ball at the Tide 36-yard line.

Ole Miss couldn’t convert Bama’s confusing (or embarrassing, depending on your rooting interest) call into a touchdown, but it gained 32 yards on 9 plays, good enough to set up Jonathan Cruz’s 22-yard field goal that gave the Rebels a 10-0 lead with 12:07 left in the 2nd quarter.

Up to that point, the Tide were playing like a team, like a program, that knew it had been eliminated from SEC title contention before the game and wanted nothing to do with the proceedings in Oxford.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to Alabama’s certain 3rd SEC loss of the season. The Tide got some energy. The Tide got rolling a little. Young led a 7-play, 80-yard scoring drive, featuring a little Jase McClellan on the ground, a little Young through the air and an Ole Miss personal-foul penalty.

The unlikely drive, with Alabama showing little energy up to that point, ended in the most unlikely of hands, as Young zipped a 19-yard TD pass over the middle to Jermaine Burton. It was only the 4th touchdown of the season for the much-hyped turned much-maligned Georgia transfer and his 1st TD since the Texas A&M game on Oct. 8.

Suddenly, it was 10-7, and after a Rebels 3-and-out in which the Tide didn’t allow a single yard, Alabama had life.

Until it didn’t, again.

On the 1st play of their next possession, the Tide looked headed for midfield and a possible go-ahead score. But receiver JoJo Earle fumbled, Ole Miss safety Otis Reese recovered, and momentum was flipped once more.

Seven plays later, Judkins was in the end zone again, on another 1-yard run, it was 17-7, and Bama was backed into a corner once again with 5:09 left in the 2nd quarter.

But just when the Tide looked buried, yet again, the ghosts of all those decades of Rebels losses to Alabama resurfaced, as star running back Zach Evans fumbled and Terrion Arnold, who always seems to be around the ball, recovered. Bama was set up at the Ole Miss 23-yard line, and Young made the Rebels pay, finding tight end Cameron Latu for an 8-yard TD pass on 3rd-and-goal with 8 seconds to go in the half.

Instead of it being 17-7 at halftime, things seemed totally different at 17-14, and Alabama had that ever-fleeting momentum in this game.

The tide continued to turn the Tide’s way early in the 3rd quarter, too, when Young yet again played magician, sidestepped a potential sack and found Ja’Corey Brooks for a 35-yard gain down the right sideline. It didn’t cost the Rebels 6 points, but Will Reichard’s 39-yard field goal was solid and true, and now it was 17-17.

And everything was up for grabs again in a rivalry that rarely has been.

But this isn’t the same ‘ol Ole Miss team, and it certainly isn’t the usual Alabama team so, naturally, the Rebels answered with authority and took a 24-17 lead on Jaxson Dart’s 3-yard touchdown flip to Jonathan Mingo with 7:28 left in the 3rd quarter.

With the champagne on ice in Baton Rouge and LSU probably back home after its victory in Fayetteville, Young and the Tide teased the Tigers a little more. This time, it was a 14-play, 75-yard march that Young finished off by dancing around the Rebels rush to his right and finding Brooks in the corner of the end zone for a 5-yard TD on 3rd-and-goal.

It was deadlocked, again, at 24-24, and the suspense was killing LSU, never mind the full house in Oxford.

Finally, Bama broke serve of sorts by stopping Ole Miss on its next possession, the 1st one of the 2nd half for either team that didn’t end in a score.

The Tide then took advantage of a 25-yard Fraser Masin punt that set them up at midfield. And while it ultimately settled for Reichard’s 23-yard field goal, it was Bama’s 1st lead of the game, and it came at just the right time with 11:19 left and that sneaky momentum teetering as night fell in Oxford.

Two more big-time Alabama defensive stops followed, the latter one in Tide territory that was sealed when Dallas Turner brought down Dart on 4th-and-8 at the Bama 41 with 6:27 left.

After Reichard’s clutch 49-yard field goal with 2:23 left, it was left up to Bama’s defense one more time, and it sure did bend a lot but didn’t break. The Rebels drove to the Tide’s 14-yard line, but Alabama said no, one last time, as it has so often to Ole Miss in this lopsided rivalry.