- As bad as things have been for Mississippi State this year, the Bulldogs are still fighting. Will Lane Kiffin convince his Ole Miss Rebels this week’s Egg Bowl matters?
When Stewart Patridge remembers the 1997 Egg Bowl, which he does quite fondly, he thinks about the seam, not the fight.
The seam was where Andre Rone ran after an intentional grounding penalty by Patridge placed the Rebels two city blocks behind the line to gain. Rone snagged a pass that kept alive the touchdown drive that led to a 2-point conversion and an Ole Miss 15-14 comeback win over Mississippi State.
The fight began in pre-game. Few Ole Miss players were on the field then, but quarterbacks and skill players were. Patridge, the Rebels’ starting quarterback, was warming up and was facing the south end zone of Scott Field when two MSU players sprinted the other direction at full speed.
“I thought to myself, they’re awfully fired up, they’re even sprinting through warm-ups. Then I turned around, and (Ole Miss) receivers and their guys hard started fighting. Those guys were running to get in the fight.”
The fight became a major talking point for an in-state rivalry game, back when the college football playoffs were decades away and the teams’ rosters were still dominated with players from Mississippi.
Both teams were trying to strengthen their bowl resumes for a lower tier postseason berth — certainly nothing of the New Year’s Day variety.
Ole Miss, at 7-4, would go on and win the Motor City Bowl against Randy Moss and Marshall.
Mississippi State, at 7-4, was left out of the bowl picture completely, just one year before clinching the SEC West title in the Egg Bowl in Oxford.
In 1997, the fight captured the attention of Mississippi college football fans and the viewing audience for the SEC’s morning game, sponsored then by Jefferson-Pilot.
It wasn’t the only fight in this series, far from it, but it was certainly a dot on the timeline referenced by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey. He summoned the Mississippi AD’s to his office – or some other convenient meeting location – to discuss these Egg Bowl fights after the 2018 version included feisty Ole Miss freshman Matt Corral getting in licks against MSU players.
When that fight at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium ended every player on each team was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
‘You guys have got to fix this’
Sankey told the Mississippi AD’s — Ross Bjork for Ole Miss and John Cohen for MSU then — you guys better restore order, or something of the like.
Taunts and chants are still around, occasionally ill-mannered hand gestures, but since 2018 nothing has resembled those two youthful displays of anxious energy.
There’s a place for fight in football, not the kind that tries to hurt guys in the other team’s jerseys, but the kind that comes when that energy is properly channeled. It becomes the stuff of tackle-breaking touchdown runs, of quarterbacks escaping the pocket to make the big throw downfield, of fourth-and-1 stops.
It starts with want-to; you can’t fight without it.
And it’s anybody’s guess whether the Rebels, their playoff destiny in their hands after a three-touchdown win against Georgia, will have it Friday afternoon.
Ole Miss is heavily favored this week against a Mississippi State team that has piled loss upon loss upon loss.
But how will the Rebels responded after last week’s 24-17 loss at Florida dashed those hopes?
As bad as things have been for Mississippi State, the Bulldogs are still fighting.
Davion Booth was physical and elusive with 124 yards and a touchdown on only 12 carries against Missouri last week.
Freshman quarterback Michael Van Buren completed almost 60% of his passes with a touchdown and no interceptions.
It was an 11-point game late in the third, but the Bulldogs were out-physicaled in the trenches and lost 39-20.
The Ole Miss-Mississippi State rivalry has had some weird games, but it was hard to envision this Mississippi State team winning at Ole Miss with the Rebels one win from a playoff berth.
But that’s no longer the scenario.
Florida has gone from the verge of firing coach Billy Napier to beating ranked teams in back-to-back games for the first time since 2018.
Little went right for the Rebels in Gainesville.
The return of All-American receiver Tre Harris was short-lived as he was injured and shelved yet again.
Catchable passes weren’t caught, scoring chances blown.
Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart, picked off only four times all year, threw into coverage and was picked off twice with the Rebels desperately seeking the tying points.
Will Lane Kiffin convince his players the Egg Bowl matters? Does he believe it himself?
The Rebels got off the mat after losing at LSU to play dynamic football against Oklahoma, Arkansas and Georgia.
But the playoffs were in view then. Now they’re not.
Will the Rebels be into it emotionally?
The Rebels will need to find that inner fight.
Patridge had it. Rone had it.
When Patridge turned around his initial reaction was to help his teammate, running back John Avery, get out of harm’s way.
But then he was grabbed from behind.
“It was (MSU’s) Greg Favors. I felt like I help put him in the NFL, I was sacked three times by him the year before,” said Patridge, now a businessman in Madison.
If Patridge was a little intimidated in the pre-game fight, he had his wits about him when it mattered most.
“Andre Rone made a great catch on a middle seam route and kept us alive on the drive. That play there was one of those … if he doesn’t make that play, there’s no touchdown, no two-point conversion,” Patridge said.
The Rebels had a shorter field than they might have had MSU coach Jackie Sherrill chosen to punt rather than try a field goal of 50-plus yards, a decision he made over the wishes of his defensive coordinator, the former Ole Miss DC and interim coach Joe Lee Dunn.
“I was a little shocked. I thought they’d try to pin us back. I said, ‘We got a chance here,’” Patridge said.
Patridge would connect with Rone again for the point, a 10-yard touchdown. They were hot, but on the two-point play, Rone was held up coming off the line.
Patridge looked for his second option, Cory Peterson, whose diving catch and winning conversion earned him the nickname “2-Point Peterson.”
“I just thought, I hope he’s where he’s supposed to be, and of course he was,” Patridge said. “He made a great catch.”
Luke keeps two-point play alive
MSU nose tackle Eric Dotson would have batted the two-point pass if not for a key block by Ole Miss center Matt Luke, Patridge said.
“Dotson missed that ball by an inch at best,” Patridge said.
Ole Miss coach Tommy Tuberville had already earned his “Riverboat Gambler” nickname. When Patridge and Rone connected, Tuberville didn’t hesitate. He was going for two to finish the fight.
“I’m glad that he did. That’s what I wanted him to do. The way I looked at it, ‘We got them on their heels. We’ve got to win it sometime. Let’s do it now while we’ve got the momentum,’” Patridge said.
Parrish Alford
