A Golden Thanksgiving

Rivalry weekend in college football is quite possibly the best week of sports around. Of course there’s the NBA Finals, the Superbowl, March Madness, and Omaha to compete with, but rivalry weekend is nonstop fun.

That was proven again this weekend when there were so many good games. To start, there was Florida State beating Florida by a touchdown, then NC State upset North Carolina by three points. UCLA beat California by a touchdown, and Missouri beat Arkansas by two. That was only on Friday.

On Saturday, The Game and The Iron Bowl headlined the day, but neither ended up being that close of a game. Michigan ended up beating Ohio State by 22, and Alabama handled Auburn easily, which was expected.

A couple of games that were overshadowed proved to be the thrillers as South Carolina knocked off rival Clemson, 31-30, to end the Tigers’ playoff hopes. Oregon State did the same to Oregon with a 38-34 win.

Both games were fantastic, but they had nothing on the best rivalry in college football: the Egg Bowl.

Everyone here knows I’m a Mississippi State fan by now. I don’t hide it. And while it’s not always a playoff or super high-level skill game like Alabama and Auburn, there’s nothing like the Battle for the Golden Egg.

First off, it’s on Thanksgiving. And secondly, the two teams and fan bases absolutely hate each other. Add that to the game being absolutely wild seemingly every year, and it makes for a fun Thanksgiving night.

This year was no exception.

It started early in the week with a TV reporter in Mississippi announcing that Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin was leaving to take the Auburn job. That didn’t end up happening, as proved on Friday when he signed an extension with Ole Miss, but it didn’t stop the drama that came from it.

Kiffin ended up trading tweets with the reporter throughout the week, and said it caused a distraction for his team. It seemed like it did as they did not look like they had earlier in the season in the Egg Bowl.

Ole Miss entered the game, and really shouldn’t have had much trouble with handling Mississippi State. But Lane Kiffin’s play calling didn’t seem to be as good as usual, and the Rebels ended up allowing Mississippi State to hang around.

The good guys (Miss. State) ended up taking a 24-16 lead in the fourth quarter and recovered a fumble? Who knows what actually happened. The refs blew the play dead but then still gave Mississippi State the ball.

That was the beginning of the Egg Bowl chaos that always seems to appear.

After a long run set up the Bulldogs with a 1st-and-goal at the 1-yard line, head coach Mike Leach decided to make a brain-dead play call and let quarterback Will Rogers run the ball out of the shotgun.

Rogers is not a mobile quarterback, and that showed. He fumbled the ball after the first defender hit him, and Ole Miss recovered it on the 1-yard line with about five minutes left.