Whatever airline company Mississippi boards Friday morning when it makes its cross-country trip to Fresno better hope it has fire extinguishers and ice packs, because Rebels’ head coach Houston Nutt has possibly the hottest seat in college football following him around.

Good news for Fresno State right? Let’s kick ‘em while their down ‘Dogs! Weeks one and two are a distant memory after this two-game winning streak we got going, right?

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. I can’t help but circle this Saturday on my calendar as a sleeping giant with its back so far against the wall that its embattled head coach has no reserves for pulling out all the stops.

A religious follower of ESPN.com’s Pacific-12 Conference blogger Ted Miller, I stumbled upon a post linking to www.coacheshotseat.com, a website that looks like it was made on someone’s iPhone. Nevertheless, the site ranks college’s hottest seats No. 1 through 10, with Nutt sitting not-so-pretty at No. 1.

Nutt has quietly paved his way into the looming college football coaches unemployment line. Fresno State wouldn’t know it because his Rebels gashed the ‘Dogs for 578 yards and 55 points last year, the same year Mississippi bombed six of its final seven games. In a conference that has hoisted the crystal ball each of the last five seasons, tanking 16 of your 26 conference games is a good way to get 86’d.

ESPN columnist Ivan Maisel wrote in his Sept. 28 edition of “3-point stance” that “The Rebels travel 2,000 miles west Saturday to play at Fresno State. In the SEC, Ole Miss is a team that has scored a total of 34 points in its three losses. But no one at Bulldog Stadium will care. All they will see is the first-ever visit by an SEC team.” Fans better start caring, because Pat Hill’s Fresno State career-long search for a win over a team from the big, bad SEC is starting to be played off as a cakewalk.

I’m obviously not one to put too much stock into numbers.­ Mississippi’s leading passer has 468 yards and two touchdowns on the season. Derek Carr has 606 passing yards with seven touchdowns in the Bulldogs’ recent back-to-back victories. The Rebels’ offense is gouge-your-eyes-out, god-awful atrocious. Mississippi has been outgained by 658 yards in its four games this season, including posting a lousy 183 yards in a loss to Georgia last weekend.

The Rebels have outgained their opponent just one time in the last nine games. That opponent was Louisiana-Lafayette of the Sun Belt Conference.

So why am I so gung-ho that Fresno State will have its hands full when the game kicks off around 6:30 Saturday night?

The last time Nutt faced an us-against-the-world scenario, his 2007 unranked Arkansas Razorbacks went into the most hostile stadium in the country and knocked off the No. 1 LSU Tigers.

“Hey, we’re the best team in the country today,” Nutt exclaimed after the 50-48 overtime victory.

All Nutt and the Rebels have to be is the best team on the field Saturday night, and nothing is more dangerous than an SEC team with nothing to lose.