The drudgery of facing weak out-of-conference opposition finally comes to an end next week for teams like Ohio State and Ole Miss after a series of blowout wins for both programs early in the 2024 season.

This was a mess, from the very beginning, when Ohio State was offside on its first kickoff. Jayden Fielding somehow then booted three consecutive kickoffs out of bounds, leading to him being benched at halftime. The Ohio Stadium crowd cheered with substitute kicker Austin Snyder sent the ball into the end zone. And straight.