There’s a lot of football to be played before November, but the Egg Bowl you have with you always

• Since 1990 there have been only two three-game win streaks in the series, one by each school. A win by the Rebels this season would be their third-straight.

I’ve never read that Jesus said, “The Egg Bowl you have with you always,” but he could have.

He applied that teaching example elsewhere, but it would work for football too.

Mississippi’s Southeastern Conference schools have impressive team and individual accomplishments in other sports, but as the least populoåus state with one SEC school much less two, comparison is inevitable.

It exists outside the state as well as SEC fans often refer to Ole Miss and Mississippi State as the “Mississippi schools” in a larger context of league conversation.

Tennessee hosted the SEC men’s basketball tournament on campus for the 1988-89 season. It wasn’t a banner year for either Ole Miss or State, and in the first round games one local columnist quipped, “Hey, it’s Mississippi Night here at the SEC Tournament.”

Then there’s Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi who used to push the narrative that the Mississippi schools should be removed from the SEC and replaced with UCF and South Florida.

The schools deserve to chart their own paths, create their own identities, but as they carve up the state’s fan base those fans know one another, are related to one another, live and work with one another and engage in a constant quest of one-upmanship.

For most, the measure of comparison is football. It pays the bills.

So, as Mississippi State and Southern Miss open the season in a few weeks it will be a matchup of two teams that combined for three wins last season.

There will be harmful side effects for State coach Jeff Lebby if the Bulldogs don’t win that game, but from a rivalry standpoint the game will be on a different, lower level.

This year, Jeff Lebby needs the Egg Bowl.

The irony is in last year’s atrocious 2-10 season, the one that has the Bulldogs’ second-year coach a popular addition to “hot seat” or “must win” stories this preseason, State was competitive against Ole Miss.

That wasn’t an uncommon theme for the Bulldogs.

They were often competitive early in games, but as the plays piled up the defensive flaws emerged. State allowed 152 second-quarter points in 2024, an average of two touchdowns.

The Bulldogs allowed 21 points in the second quarter each time in losses to Toledo and Florida.

But in November at home, the Rebels struggled to drop the hammer.

Rebels never really pulled away

A team that narrowly missed the College Football Playoffs won the rivalry game just 26-14 against a bad team.

State led 14-10 after the first. It didn’t score again, but Ole Miss didn’t have a two-possession lead until fewer than 10 minutes remained in the game when Jaxson Dart passed 19 yards to Caden Prieskorn.

It’s a credit to Lebby that while the Bulldogs didn’t win, they didn’t quit.

State looked like a team that quit in the 2008 Egg Bowl when Houston Nutt’s first Ole Miss team won 45-0.

That was an unfortunate dot on the timeline before the arrival of Dan Mullen.

Mullen understand the significance of the Egg Bowl. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t from around here or hadn’t coached in Mississippi before. The Bulldogs’ humiliation in Oxford in 2008 was a helpful illustration.

State was a hot mess when Mullen took over for Sylvester Croom. The Bulldogs needed to win games, more than just against Ole Miss.

But Mullen knew the can’t-miss way to get State fans behind him was to win the Egg Bowl. He went 5-4 in nine games against Ole Miss, winning his first one with a 4-7 MSU team against a No. 20-ranked Ole Miss team in Starkville. Mullen “got it,” thus the verbal jabs at Ole Miss, thus the Egg Bowl countdown clock in State’s football building.

State fans would argue that the team should get a pass for losing 31-28 to Ole Miss in Starkville in 2017, Mullen’s last game, because he’d already checked out and was focused on his next gig, Florida.

In contrast, Nutt didn’t “get” the Egg Bowl.

He had no in-state rivalry while coach at Arkansas from 1998-2007.

He lost to State in 1998, his first season with the Razorbacks, in a game that gave the Bulldogs control of the SEC West, setting them up for a berth in the SEC championship game by beating Ole Miss – sans its starting quarterback, Romaro Miller – in the Egg Bowl in Oxford the following week.

After 1998, Nutt closed his Arkansas tenure with nine-straight wins against the Bulldogs.

He wasn’t sweating that rivalry when he got to Ole Miss, especially after his first experience with it in 2008.

No countdown clock necessary

Fast forward to 2025, Lane Kiffin doesn’t need to jab the Bulldogs or install a countdown clock.

Ole Miss fans can talk about the distance between the programs, and they’re correct.

But there was distance between the programs in 2008 too. In the modern era, the rivalry tends to be cyclical.

Since 1990 there have been only two three-game win streaks in the series, one by each school. A win by the Rebels’ this season would be their third-straight.

We’ll know a lot more about each team by the time an 11 a.m. kickoff the day after Thanksgiving arrives.

Lebby’s MSU tenure could be nearing its end, or his defensive line fixes will have worked, and the Bulldogs, picked last by SEC media, will have unexpected momentum.

Kiffin has earned the right to treat the Egg Bowl as just another game for a rising program. The Rebels, in spite of key losses at quarterback and defensive line, were picked seventh in the 16-team SEC. They start the season at No. 15 in the coaches poll. Still, Kiffin seems to understand the game’s importance to his fans.

There won’t be many Egg Bowl comments from either camp between now and then.

Same for the fans, though they’ll follow along, watch one another and jab when appropriate.

The Egg Bowl you have with you always.