Lane Kiffin admits he shouldn't have barbed with Mississippi State fans, calls out cowbells
The Egg Bowl is officially in the books. On Thanksgiving night, Ole Miss traveled to Mississippi State and took down the Bulldogs 31-21. The rivalry between the two teams is very apparent, and Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin even got into it a little bit with Mississippi State fans.
Kiffin regrets getting caught up in the emotion of the game, saying that he probably shouldn’t have done what he did.
“Yeah I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Kiffin said of his reaction towards Mississippi State after Ealy’s touchdown. “But I get it now. Like I said, it was different than coming here than Alabama. There’s a lot of things said to you on the way out. Their players say a lot of things during the game and it gets emotional and gets competitive. So I did kind of get caught up in that.
“And those bells are really annoying by the way. They don’t come close to following the rules. So whatever rule that is that they’re supposed to stop, they don’t.”
After Ole Miss running back Jerrion Ealy found the end zone in the fourth quarter, Kiffin turned back towards the sideline and the crowd behind it, seemingly giving a response to Mississippi State fans.
The win propels Ole Miss to 10-2 on the season, finishing the regular season 6-2 against SEC opponents. Mississippi State is now 7-5 on the year and 4-4 against SEC teams.
Kiffin has learned the ‘toxicity’ of the Egg Bowl rivalry between Ole Miss, Mississippi State
Earlier in the week, Kiffin admitted that he didn’t quite know the extent of how deep the Egg Bowl rivalry between Ole Miss and Mississippi State was. But as he has gotten to experience it for himself, Kiffin is no stranger to it now.
“I don’t think I knew the toxicity,” Kiffin said on Monday. “I had heard about it here or there, recruiting issues and all that. Someone said it the other day, it doesn’t make sense because Leach and I get along. Maybe we were brought here to bring the state together or something, get you guys to get along. It is football, you know, so, you really shouldn’t hate people because they went to a certain school.”
Ole Miss was already ranked in the top ten entering the final week of the regular season. With a tenth win and a couple of top ranked teams facing off in the final week of the season, the Rebels could leap even further up the rankings. A New Year’s Six Bowl is almost certainly ahead for Ole Miss.