Think this rivalry doesn’t mean anything?
All eyes are on Lane Kiffin today at the Egg Bowl, as Ole Miss takes on in-state rival Mississippi State for what may be Kiffin’s final game on the sideline for the Rebels.
Kiffin has, of course, been linked to pretty much every open job in college football this year, but it’s heavily speculated that he’ll be leaving Oxford to replace Brian Kelly at LSU. Earlier this month his family was spotted touring Baton Rouge, and his girlfriend Landry Kiffin is even dating LSU lineman Whit Weeks.
But so far, Kiffin has given no indication of whether he plans to stay at Ole Miss or leave for Baton Rouge, something that’s frustrated Ole Miss fans who are forced to deal with this distraction during one of the best seasons in program history. The Rebels are 10-1 and in a great position to make the College Football Playoffs as long as they take care of business and beat Mississippi State today in Starkville.
The Bulldogs, on the other hand, have had a disappointing season despite appearing to have turned things around earlier in the year. They’re sitting at 5-6, needing a win today to get themselves to bowl eligibility, and are 14th in the SEC. Not a lot to play for today, right?
Wrong.
The Egg Bowl is one of the great rivalries of college football (and it should really be moved back to its place on Thanksgiving Day, but that’s another discussion), and has given us some great upsets throughout the years. Both teams want to win the game, whether their season depends on it or not, and the fans for both teams are just as fired up as they would be if it were the SEC Championship Game.
In fact, it sounds like the fans may have even tried to get into the heads of Ole Miss before the game even started.
Kiffin spoke to Marty Smith on ESPN this morning, where he revealed that some Mississippi State students broke into the Ole Miss locker room overnight and stole their quarterback Trinidad Chambliss’ jersey:
“I mean, shoot at 10:00 last night – luckily, our great Ken Crain, our equipment manager, put cameras, secret cameras in the locker room so we could watch Mississippi State break into our locker room and start stealing things.
We reported it to Mississippi State, and they said, we’ll put security, and how about this? At 3:00 in the morning, they break in again and take Trinidad’s jersey, so I guess you expect nothing less from these people.”
Of course a lot of people think Kiffin was just trying to give some red meat to his fanbase and that he made up the whole locker room break-in story, or that he was trying to make sure that was the headline instead of his upcoming decision on where he’ll be coaching next year.
It was announced earlier this week that a decision on Kiffin’s future would be revealed tomorrow, and it’s entirely possible that he could end up getting his team into the playoffs and then not coaching them in their playoff games if he takes the LSU job.
But if you think this game today doesn’t mean anything, you don’t understand college football.
