5 takeaways from Ole Miss football's Egg Bowl win over Mississippi State

OXFORD — If you like going for it on fourth down and quarterbacks combining for over 800 passing yards, this year's Egg Bowl was for you.

It shouldn't be surprising that a game between Mike Leach and Lane Kiffin yielded a ton of offense and very few punts. The scoring might not have been as prolific as many thought it'd be, but there was more to the game than the 31-24 final score indicated.

"I thought it was a pretty explosive game," Leach said. "I thought both teams were fairly explosive. When that happens, nearly anything can happen. That's how this thing kind of unfolded."

Here are five takeaways from Ole Miss' victory over Mississippi State.

Ole Miss junior quarterback Matt Corral connected on three throws of 40 or more yards, including a 53-yarder to junior wideout Elijah Moore less than two minutes into the game.

"It was a good feeling but it wasn't our best production on offense," Corral said. "A lot of three-and-outs and not getting the fourth down when we should get the fourth down. It's really just missed assignments. O-line had I few, I had a few not getting to my second progressions."

MSU junior safety Landon Guidry was beaten by two Ole Miss senior wide receivers on long touchdowns — a 48-yarder to Dontario Drummond and an 81-yarder to Braylon Sanders. Corral hit both of them in stride.

Mississippi State has been thin in the secondary after starting safeties Fred Peters and Marcus Murphy were lost for the season, the former to an injury and the latter to an opt out. It showed Saturday.

Mississippi State struggles on third down

Mississippi State, trailing by one touchdown for much of the game, had its chances to pull even. But an inability to move the chains on third down didn’t do the Dogs any favors.

Mississippi State finished 3-of-13 on third down. MSU had five drives of five or less plays that did not produce any points. Four of them netted less than 10 yards.

"We dealt ourselves out of some drives, which is unfortunate," Leach said. "Because they really didn't stop us for the most part. We stopped ourselves.

While the Bulldogs had scoring drives of 93 and 75 yards, they couldn’t consistently move the ball against an Ole Miss defense that came into the game ranked last in the SEC in yards allowed per game.

The Rebels averaged 535.6 yards allowed per game before Saturday. Mississippi State gained 479, many of which came in the fourth quarter while the Bulldogs were playing catch-up.

Corral had a quiet 385 passing yards. He was outdone by Mississippi State freshman Will Rogers, who had 440 on 45-of-61 attempts. Rogers threw three touchdowns and Corral threw two. Neither threw an interception.

Corral completed 24 of his 36 passing attempts, so he averaged 15.5 yards per completion to Rogers' 9.1. Both quarterbacks were given time to sling the ball as Ole Miss only sacked Rogers once while Mississippi State got to Corral twice.

Corral and Rogers gave a glimpse into what the Egg Bowl will be like in the years to come. Gone are the days when Mississippi State tried to beat its bitter rival by running the ball between the tackles.

And while Ole Miss stayed committed to the run in rushing the ball 45 times, Kiffin's offense operates so quickly that it is still a change of pace from past Egg Bowls. There were also nine fourth-down conversion attempts.

The game might not have provided a ton of lead changes and back-and-forth scoring, but the way the two programs will play under Leach and Kiffin could certainly yield such games.

"It's a really neat win," Kiffin said. "First time being a part of this rivalry, you could feel the energy from our fans even though the stadium wasn't full and our players with our sideline energy."

The Egg Bowl is usually one of the crazier atmospheres in college football. Not in 2020.

There were only 16,218 on hand at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium because of stadium capacity rules set by Gov. Tate Reeves.

The Grove was completely empty prior to kickoff as Reeves has also prohibited pregame tailgating. The Rebel fans who did enter the stadium were loud, but it would have obviously been much louder at full strength.

One drive away, again

As inconsistent as Mississippi State was, the Bulldogs still had a chance to send the game to overtime. Rogers' Hail Mary attempt as time expired was swatted to the turf.

Mississippi State started at its own 20 with 23 seconds left. Rogers completed a 41-yard pass to wide receiver Geor'quarius Spivey to give his team a chance at a last-second touchdown.

"I was proud of how they played," Leach said. "You got young guys playing extremely hard. They're improving, not as fast as I'd like or they'd like and everyone else would like, but we're improving. And it was one of the grittier games I've been involved in my teams playing, I thought."

Contact Tyler Horka at [email protected]. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!