With an important regular-season finale ending a short week, Mississippi has watched its dreams shift from national success to perhaps something it certainly did not want on Thanksgiving weekend:
An Egg Bowl that holds only regional significance and statewide bragging rights.
After their third and disappointing defeat, the No. 14 Rebels will play Friday afternoon in their annual Egg Bowl matchup against rival Mississippi State in the intrastate series in Oxford, Miss.
It will not be easy putting aside the catastrophic 24-17 loss at Florida last Saturday, a soul-crushing setback that all but ended any College Football Playoff aspirations for the most talented Rebels team assembled in a long time. Coach Lane Kiffin’s team slid five spots to 14th in the latest CFP rankings.
The offseason outlook was rosy when Ole Miss (8-3, 4-3 SEC) shelled out big NIL money and added the top portal class to fill a roster that won 11 games in 2023.
But the Rebels repeatedly shot themselves in the foot Saturday against the Gators. Ole Miss’ high-powered offense turned the ball over three times, went 3 of 14 on third down, failed on two fourth-down attempts, dropped five passes and missed a field goal.
Before the game, ABC’s broadcast noted that the Rebels had an 84 percent chance to make the CFP. Following the loss, that number dwindled to four percent. The only way the Oxford school gets in is if there is the repeated chaos of Week 13, one that talk show host Paul Finebaum called “the most SEC carnage” he had ever seen.
The Egg Bowl has been played on Thanksgiving Day 23 times, including 2017 to last season, but Kiffin feels the afternoon start on Friday is an advantage.
“It helps them to know that playoffs are still alive and they get kind of the first shot to show everybody on a national stage,” Kiffin said Monday, “as opposed to a Saturday game where these people that make the decisions don’t necessarily see all the games because so many are going on.”
For the second time this month, Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby will lead his last-place Bulldogs (2-9, 0-7) against a former boss. The 40-year-old head coach faced Tennessee and coach Josh Heupel, who had Lebby on his staff at UCF in 2018 and 2019, in a 33-14 loss on Nov. 9.
Now he will face Kiffin, whom he was paired with in 2020 and 2021 in their first two seasons at Ole Miss when the school led the SEC in total offense.
A frequent social media user who enjoys trolling others, Kiffin took a jab at Lebby and Mississippi State when the first-year coach was hired.
“We’ve traded texts throughout the season and had communication,” Lebby said Monday. “But no, not this week. He’ll continue to find ways to have fun on social. That’s who he’s always been and who he’ll always be.”
Ole Miss owns a 65-46-6 series advantage and has claimed five of the past seven matches, including a 35-3 “Egg Brawl” victory by the Bulldogs in 2018 that was later vacated.
Another loss to the Rebels would give MSU its first winless SEC season since 2002.
–Field Level Media
