Brian Kelly’s evolving LSU team seemed to learn some valuable lessons from its first encounter with a top-10 team in Tiger Stadium, responding with its best game of the year to bounce back last week and beat Florida handily on the road.

But will it play at home?

The Tigers will find out today how much that teachable moment — Tennessee 40, LSU 13 — translates into a step up in competition against its second top-10 opponent in three weeks.

The Tigers (5-2, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) will get right back into the fire when they host No. 7 Ole Miss this afternoon, a key game for both teams beyond the Magnolia Bowl trophy that is at stake.

The Rebels (7-0, 3-0) are surprisingly atop the SEC West standings. The Tigers could join them with a victory.

But Kelly said he’s not talking about the West standings this week.

“What we’re talking about is how we play better in front of our home fans against a top-10 team,” he said. “Our focus will be on ourselves.”

It likely depends on how much LSU learned after being taken to school the last time it was in Tiger Stadium, flunking that first top-10 exam badly against Tennessee.

“This team each week is learning so much and growing,” Kelly said of LSU today as opposed to the Tigers who looked overmatched in their own stadium two weeks ago. “I guess what I’m saying is, it’s not a different team, but it’s a team that has grown the last couple of weeks.

“It’s a team that has confidence, it’s a team that knows if they don’t play clean and pay attention to detail, they’ll have similar results to what they had against Tennessee.

“Nobody really wants to be learning lessons from a loss,” he added. “But they learned a lot about intentionality and purpose in terms of preparation.”

The Tigers came alive in that 45-35 victory over the Gators last week, particularly the passing game that quarterback Jayden Daniels, whose legs are a big part of the attack, seemed to take advantage of the talented receiving corps, which stepped up for 349 yards in the air.

“It’s a work in progress,” Kelly said. “Sooner or later we had to step up and make these play and they did (last) Saturday. Now we’ve got to be consistent at it. You can’t do it one week and then turn it off and expect to win.”

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin had a different take on the Tigers.

“This is our most talented opponent by far,” he said.

It’s also the first major road test for his Rebels, whose previous away games were at Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt, both with 3-4 records.

“Obviously this is a different animal than the first two places,” Kiffin said. “This will be a real atmosphere and crowd noise for our guys to step into.”

Two years ago when Kiffin took his first Ole Miss team to Baton Rouge, LSU won a wild 53-48 shootout.

“Their crowd understands football and is into it as much as any place that you go,” Kiffin said. “We’ve played some really challenging games there.”