Paul Finebaum gives headline for Ole Miss-Mississippi State in Egg Bowl

The 2021 edition of the Ole Miss-Mississippi State rivalry, known as the Egg Bowl, could very well be one of the highest-scoring outcomes in recent history, as Lane Kiffin and Mike Leach both boast high-powered offenses.

It’s been a good year for football in the state of Mississippi, at least compared to the last several years. Both programs have been a mainstay in the AP Top 25 Poll and will soon go bowling; Ole Miss is currently ranked No. 8 with a 9-2 record, while Mississippi State just recently fell out of the top 25 with a 7-4 record.

Mississippi State, the home team, opened as a narrow, 2.5-point favorite in the matchup, while a win would effectively secure Ole Miss a spot in a New Year’s Six bowl game. ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum thinks Ole Miss will get the job done, but adds that Saturday’s Egg Bowl could very well be Kiffin’s last regular-season game at Ole Miss

“Kiffin survives, finishes regular season 10-2,” Finebaum said, predicting his headline for the upcoming Egg Bowl clash. “Speculation about his future rains.”

With a number of open Power Five jobs — namely, three of which that might interest Kiffin in USC, LSU and Florida — Finebaum posits the question of whether Kiffin will stay in Oxford.

In just his second season at Ole Miss, the Rebels have improved significantly, turning a 5-5 record in 2020 into a 9-2 record in 2021 with a likely spot in a New Year’s Six bowl. Perhaps he won’t make it to a third season, though, with a myriad of college football’s most powerful jobs opening up.

Matt Corral issues warning to Ole Miss ahead of Egg Bowl

Matt Corral and the Ole Miss Rebels could not have asked for a better start to their senior night, as Ole Miss’ first drive saw the offense use just five plays to march 65 yards and score a touchdown in 1:07 of game time.

Ole Miss looked to be in a position to dominate the Vanderbilt Commodores on Saturday, and the next two possessions — a three-play, one-yard, three-and-out for Vanderbilt, followed by another field-goal drive to extend Ole Miss’ lead to 10-0 — continued to swing in the Rebels direction.

From there, though, it went downhill.

After the first ten points of the game, Ole Miss barely outscored Vanderbilt by a 21-17 margin, winning 31-17 in a game where the Commodores’ defense gave Corral everything he could handle. The Rebels were far from perfect on Saturday night, despite being heavily favored as a top-15 team hosting a bottom-dwelling SEC program. And now, as Ole Miss prepares to travel to Starkville for an Egg Bowl matchup against a dangerous, 7-4 Mississippi State team, Corral issued a warning to his teammates.

“All I’m thinking about is tomorrow and getting ready for [Mississippi] State,” Corral said, when asked of the emotional toll from senior night. “Just because it was a sloppy win today. You don’t really have to know football to see that. You can just see it in our play. We’ve just got to get better.

“This was nothing to celebrate,” Corral told his teammates postgame. “If we’re being honest, last week, we didn’t have the best practice Monday and Tuesday. … When we play teams of our caliber, they’re going to win. So, if we play like that against Mississippi State, we’re going to get blown out. That’s just the reality of it.”