At first glance, the state line between Louisiana and Mississippi seems to follow exactly the mighty river that defines both states.

Closer examination reveals how the border diverges from the current path of the Mississippi at places with sepia-colored names such as Old River and Yucatan Landing and Palmyra Lake, places that Mark Twain may have once visited but where the river’s current path has been abandoned.

Louisiana and Mississippi, whether people from each state want to admit it in times like these, are intertwined, whether it’s Old Man River or the blues – or football.

Even in this modern age of massive TV contracts, millionaire coaches and now millionaire players, college football is still a game that evokes nostalgia. Nowhere is it more nostalgic than in the South. Nowhere is Southern football more nostalgic than when it comes to LSU and Ole Miss.

When you think of the Tigers and Rebels, you think of a humid Halloween night and a ghost in a white shirt in front of No. 20 LSU, weaving through would-be tacklers and into the end zone. Or a rubber-legged redhead from a small hamlet named Drew, deep in the Mississippi Delta region, who became a near-deity for both Ole Miss and the Saints.

It sets your watch back four seconds when crossing the state line because of the way the Tigers defeated the Rebels in 1972. It shouts “Go to hell, LSU!” at The Grove in Oxford, or “Go to hell, Ole Miss!” beneath the massive oak trees in Baton Rouge that grow not far from that legendary river.

Legends are made in this game. If your name is Cannon or Manning or Burrow or Daniels, or known to Rebels and Saints fans as Deuce, then you left your mark on LSU vs. Ole Miss, or Ole Miss vs. LSU.

Yes, Ole Miss has Mississippi State in the annual Egg Bowl, and that’s the ultimate game for both of them. LSU still has Alabama, even though the scarecrow in the Tigers’ football cornfield, Nick Saban, has finally retired. But there’s something special about this rivalry.

Beat Ole Miss? LSU expects it.

Beat LSU? Ole Miss enjoys it.

Perhaps appropriate for the upside-down world of college football circa 2024, but this game feels very different. No. No. 9 Ole Miss is favored over No. 13 LSU. According to ESPN, it’s the first time since the IA/I-AA (now FBS and FCS) split in 1978 that the Rebels have been favored over a top-15 team on the road. This comes a year after Ole Miss’ 55-49 victory in Oxford, a game with more than 1,300 combined yards and more points than a basket full of LSU-Ole Miss basketball games.

The way the Tigers went down dented their pride, especially on defense. Linebacker Greg Penn was watching film Monday night when he got a call from LSU safety Major Burns.

Burn’s message? “We owe them something.”

What better time, to borrow a piece from Shakespeare, to turn an age-old grudge into new mutiny. LSU is making the Ole Miss game the centerpiece of Tiger Stadium’s 100th anniversary celebration, which the smart money says will feature a replay of Billy Cannon’s 1959 punt return against Ole Miss on that giant new video board above the north end zone. It’s even homecoming, usually a designation reserved for a more beatable opponent.

Ole Miss could throw a bucket of cold water on all of LSU’s festivities and finally tackle Cannon and, for dessert, stick a fork into the Tigers’ still-breathing College Football Playoff hopes. It’s a risk worth taking. The setting, the opponent, the match – and you expect the weather – all have to be perfect.

“When you come here, you expect to play in a game like this,” LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier said, “a top-15 game.”

It’s a game that Tiger Stadium should bring loud, seismograph-shaking, bourbon with a beer chaser best to its plane on takeoff. An event that lights a fire under the adrenal glands, quickens the heart rate and cushions the palms.

“It’s one of the reasons I came to play at LSU,” Penn said, “to play in a game like this. Saturday night in Death Valley – it’s just exciting to get to play.”

It’s just as exciting to watch.

LSU fans show up and get called out when their Tigers are in danger. This is a dangerous game.

The smart money from Caesars in Vegas to Biloxi’s Beau Rivage says the Rebels must win. But Ole Miss is beat up and exhausted from playing what will be its seventh straight game, and the Lane Kiffin grin was ripped right off two weeks ago when Kentucky stunned the Rebels 20-17 in Oxford.

This should be Ole Miss’ year, but it can’t be if it loses to LSU. Maybe the oddsmakers are right, but there’s also something Les Miles said after his Tigers defeated the No. 3 Rebels 10-7 in 2014:

“That was Death Valley,” he said. “That was the place where opponents’ dreams come to an end.”

Someone’s epitaph is waiting to be written on the banks of the Mississippi.