Hugh Kellenberger

The Clarion-Ledger

OXFORD — We make football into this needlessly complicated game sometimes, where every game is going to be decided by this one play call that’s made only after 70-something hours of film study. And even then, you’re only going to win if you worked harder than everyone else in recruiting for the last four or five years.

But you know what, sometimes it really just does come down to who wants it more. Just look at Saturday’s Egg Bowl, a 55-20 Mississippi State win that will be remembered for how well the Bulldogs played and just how awful the Rebels looked.

At the end of a season that began in a disaster, where even with a win Mississippi State needs its academic progress rate (APR) to maybe get to a bowl game at 5-7, the Bulldogs played with pride. They played with passion. This is a family-friendly publication, so let’s just say, “They gave a dang.”

Ole Miss? Yeah, some of the Rebels did all they could. But not all of them. Not nearly enough of them. It was a remarkably poor effort (especially considering a win clinched a bowl game) that was evident quickly and continued throughout a night in which Mississippi State ran for 457 yards.

Did you see something just now, out of the corner of your eye? That was Nick Fitzgerald. He’s just running past the Ole Miss defense again. No big deal.

And that other blur? Yeah, that’s Aeris Williams. There was one Ole Miss guy who tried to grab him by the arms and another that kinda patted at the football. But other than that, Williams has been running free for hours now.

After a game in which Fitzgerald set a school record with 258 rushing yards (1,243 for the season), he was asked at what point in the game did he know that the Bulldogs would have success running against the Rebels.

“First series,” Fitzgerald said.

That's a burn. And how did it feel to run towards the south end zone of your rival’s stadium with no one around you for a 61-yard third-quarter touchdown that put this game away?

“It’s always great when you’re running and no one is around you,” Fitzgerald said. “To do it in a big-time game like this and do it in front of this crowd, it’s surreal.”

Fred Ross caught one pass all night (he made it count — a fourth-down reception that turned into a 38-yard touchdown), but he had one heck of a view for the Fitzgerald and Williams show.

“Fitz did a great job of just controlling the game, and he kept us up,” Ross said. “(Williams) just handled them all night.”

Both teams beat Texas A&M earlier this month and thought they were really on their way, only to fall flat on their face. Alabama and Arkansas just worked Mississippi State, scoring 109 points, and Ole Miss went to Vanderbilt on Nov. 19 and were similarly exposed by the Commodores.

But here’s the difference between Mississippi State, which took the Egg Bowl trophy home for the first time since 2013, and Ole Miss, whose own coach Hugh Freeze said he was “glad the season is over now.” (A remarkably tone deaf statement no matter its larger intent, considering Freeze’s annual salary is near $5 million and a bowl game is not too much to ask for that sort of cash.) One team got off the mat. One rose to the occasion. The other wilted in it.

“They get to finish this on a winning note,” Mullen said, a victory cigar dangling from his right hand. “I’m so proud of a bunch of men that now can look and say when things don’t go your way, tie your boots a little bit tighter and get back to work.”

Contact Hugh Kellenberger at 601-961-7190 or hkellenber@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @HKellenbergerCL on Twitter.