89th Battle for the “Golden Egg” – Game Preview

Photo courtesy of Danny Dickey

The 2016 Ole Miss football season is quickly coming to a close as the month of November winds down and a time for Thanksgiving is upon us. People in the state of Mississippi also know what this means, it’s time for the annual battle for the Golden Egg.

On Saturday afternoon the Rebels will host the Bulldogs from Mississippi State on a senior day where Ole Miss will be looking to send the seniors out with the hopes going to a bowl game.

Ole Miss (4-6, 2-5 SEC) enters the game coming off of a 38-17 loss to Vanderbilt last Saturday in Nashville.

Freshman QB Shea Patterson went 20-42, threw for 222 yards and tossed  2 touchdowns against the Commodores.

Hugh Freeze spoke about how his freshman quarterback played against Vanderbilt. 

“He’s probably about where you would expect any freshman who came out this early in the season to be,” said Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze. “He had a great game at Texas A&M by many people’s standards. But we watched the film and you see there are still many things he doesn’t quite understand. The Vanderbilt game, there was some of that also. But he also had about 10 drops. He missed a couple of passes too, he had Quincy Adeboyejo on a touchdown and Evan (Engram) on a touchdown and he missed those. So it’s a combination. But he definitely had quite a few drops where if he did make those throws, we might be sitting here feeling differently. There would still be stuff on film that he’s got to get an understanding of. It’s great that we have some extra time this week with classes not in session that he can get some extra film. We can make sure he feels great about what we’re trying to do this Saturday. There were a lot of good things he did, but still ways, to go.”

Let’s take a closer look at the Bulldogs.

Mississippi State enters the Egg Bowl with a 4-7 record, 2-5 in SEC play. The Bulldogs are not eligible for a bowl game for the first time in seven years. Depending on Saturday’s outcome, they will either match or set their worst record under Dan Mullen.

Sophomore QB Nick Fitzgerald has thrown for 2,178 yards and 18 TDs this season. He’s also run for a conference-best 12 TDs. His favorite receiver is Fred Ross, who leads the SEC in receiving TDs (11) and ranks third in the conference with 835 receiving yards. On the other side of the ball, MSU is allowing an SEC-high 34.3 points per game.

Here’s what Freeze had to say about the difficulty of game planning for Fitzgerald.

“We have to win first downs. They’re like a lot of us, when they get into their third-down packages with a quarterback like that, it’s very difficult to plan for and to stop and have success,” Freeze said. “We have to win first down against a guy like him. I think that’s a critical stat to follow in this game, being able to win that down and get them into third-and-long. If you’re always worried about, if it’s either run or pass, it can be difficult.”

Going deeper into the rivalry.

This game is the 113th meeting of one of the nation’s most-played rivalries as Ole Miss holds a 63-43-6 advantage in the series dating back to 1901. Saturday’s game will be the 89th “Battle of the Golden Egg,” as the two schools started playing for the trophy in 1927.

Ole Miss is seeking its first three-game win streak in the series since 2002-04.

Kickoff is set for 2:30p.m. on SEC Network or fans can listen to all of the action on the Ole Miss Sports Radio Network.

Adam Brown is the sports editor of HottyToddy.com. He can be reached at adam.brown@hottytoddy.com.