Saturday, November 25, 2006

Ole Miss 20, Miss. State 17
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium – Oxford, Miss.
TV: None – Attendance: 57,658

Official Trip Song: "Dixie" by the Ole Miss marching band

OXFORD, Miss. – When we last left off, we had left Andrew’s family’s house on Friday evening after enjoying some Razorback Pizza. We trekked back to my house in Saltillo, stopping once in Olive Branch to fill up with gas at a Shell station where the Fast and the Furious 3 must have been filmed. Special teams once again became the ultimate downfall of Mississippi State against hated rival Ole Miss as the Rebels capped the season as Egg Bowl champions with a 20-17 win for the misshapen football trophy.



My dad had made it to the house earlier that night, and we got into town around 11:30 p.m. By 1 a.m., everyone had retired to his bed. We woke up early Saturday morning and threw the football around outside for a few minutes before piling into my dad’s truck and heading to Oxford.

On the way, we were passed by Jay “Frat Boy” Middleton, a Mississippi State media relations student assistant who had worked several SEC events with me. I couldn’t get ahold of him on the phone, and this was pretty much the only exciting portion of the journey. We eased through traffic on Highway 6 and made it to Abner’s off The Square for lunch. This is the original Abner’s, home of Mississippi’s most famous chicken tenders. The tenders, as always, were delicious.



We circled back to Highway 6 and exited onto Coliseum Drive to park. We hopped a curb onto the same lawn we had parked back in 2004 for the Auburn-Ole Miss game. The first stop on campus was a bookstore in order to purchase the needed items from campus. We ended up at the Rebel Spirit Store adjacent to the stadium’s parking lot. Inside, we found the deal of the trip: Nike Ole Miss jerseys for $14.99. We couldn’t pass it up as Andrew soon was sporting his Brent Schaeffer No. 7 while I countered with Robert “The Future” Lane’s No. 15. My dad then threatened to not allow us in his truck on the ride home.



We meandered up to the Grove just to say we had been there. Game time was inching closer, so after catching a Florida-Florida State score on a TV, we headed to our seats. After standing in line for a good 30 minutes to get a drink, dad and I headed to section B just in time for the Star Spangled Banner. Andrew started the game in Section K before joining us near the end of the first quarter.



Ole Miss had a touch and go initial drive before Schaeffer lofted a pass up to Greg Hardy, who crossed the goal line on third down 23 yards past the line of scrimmage to give the Rebels a 7-0 lead. Mississippi State then responded with a promising drive that ended with a field goal to cut the Rebel lead to 7-3.

The Rebels added three more points in the second half as the offense had difficulty moving against MSU’s inspired front seven. Anthony Dixon tied the score up with 2:57 to play in the first half after bulldozing his way into the endzone from two yards out. However, during the halftime intermission, State somehow gained three more points and led 13-10 until about 10 minutes left before the teams reemerged from the locker rooms.

The halftime shows featured MSU’s video game tribute (somewhere, Robert Boully is crying tears of joy knowing that the Maroon Band knows the theme to Zelda) and a patriotic medley from Ole Miss’s Spirit of the South band.

The third quarter didn’t have much to write home about, outside of another Ole Miss field goal to put the home team ahead 13-10 heading into the final 15 minutes. It appeared that neither team was playing to win but merely afraid to lose at this point, although MSU continually showed signs that they were more prepared and more inspired.

The Bulldogs then leaned on Omarr Conner’s arm a little too much in the fourth quarter as the senior, playing in his final collegiate game, tossed incomplete after incomplete. The Rebels finally seized momentum when Marshay Green juked and headed for the sideline to score on a 47-yard punt return to push the Rebels’ lead to 20-10 with under five minutes remaining.

Conner woke up and put the Bulldogs in the red zone in five plays, capping the drive with a perfect pass to tight end Jason Husband, who fell with the ball crossing the plane to narrow the deficit to 20-17.

Fed up with Schaeffer’s ineptness to put the team in a position to score, Ed Orgeron and offensive coordinator had made a decision before Green’s punt return to turn the offense over to backup QB Seth Adams. Adams failed to engineer a first down as the Rebels were stopped on four-straight rushing attempts. After a personal foul call gave the Bulldogs the ball for one last drive inside their 30, Conner went back to work. Out-routes to the white-clad receivers allowed MSU to get to the UM 34 with about 30 seconds to spare.

After one last pass fell incomplete near the 20 yard line, Sylvester Croom has decidedly seen enough from the offense and placed the game on Adam Carlson’s shoulders. Carlson’s attempt from 51 yards fell wide left as time expired to preserve the Ole Miss victory, possibly Orgeron’s signature win in his early head coaching career.



The Red & Blue will head into the off-season with a potential quarterback controversy for the fourth-straight season (or ever since Eli graduated). However, they do have some momentum after playing several teams close and finishing off the 2006 slate with a much-needed victory over their in-state rival. The early recruiting rankings give Ole Miss fans a faint sign of hope, although it is still going to take a lot of rebuilding in order to catch back up to Arkansas, LSU and Auburn in the West.

Meanwhile, Mississippi State also heads into the spring with some momentum of its own. Like Ole Miss, they played several teams close down the stretch and earned a monumental victory over Croom’s alma mater in Tuscaloosa. Several MSU observers feel as though the Dawgs out-played Arkansas and Ole Miss despite coming up short on the scoreboard. I think for the first time since his first game against Tulane in 2004, Croom has recaptured a positive buzz amongst the MSU faithful.

In conclusion, both teams have grown up over the course of the season and bowl bids could be in the very near future for one or both of the programs. Somewhere in Memphis, Liberty Bowl officials are rejoicing.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “We’re giving them three points to cover the spread.” – Chris Purser, Ole Miss media relations assistant, when I asked how Miss. State ended up with three extra points during the halftime period to take an unearned 13-10 lead during the Maroon Band’s halftime show.

Things we learned: This was easily the most boring game of the trip. (Well, maybe not as boring as the 49-0 breath-taker we took in down on the Bayou.) Robert Lane was not, in fact, the “Future” as our friend Toothless informed Brad and Andrew back in 2004. All Coach O could say after getting the biggest win of the season for the Rebels: “Oyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo Egg Bowl!” It’s been “Our Time” at Ole Miss in 2003, then 2004, then 2005, then 2006 and now 2007 according to this guy’s shirt.



Mitch Sighting: An honorable mention goes to the old user who wouldn’t let Andrew cross over the bleacher end zone to join my dad and I at our seats, but one character made sure that he would stick out in our section.

The guy in the picture below was our Mitch, complete with vibrant hand motions after every turning point in the contest. His “first down” motion in accordance with the announcer’s cue was inspirational to the Rebel fans around him. This guy was ruthless and almost knocked over his neighbors on several occasions. His face when State drove down the field undefended to cut the score back to within three with under three minutes to play was priceless.



The trip comes to an end next Saturday in the Georgia Dome at the SEC Championship Game between Arkansas and Florida.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Florida 21, Georgia 14
N4 – Florida 25, Vanderbilt 19
N11 – Georgia 37, Auburn 15
N18 – Auburn 22, Alabama 15
N24 – LSU 31, Arkansas 26
N25 – Ole Miss 20, Miss. State 17
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta) – Florida vs. Arkansas