OXFORD — The Mississippi State football team arrived at Ole Miss with everything at stake.
The Bulldogs left with nothing but disappointment.
Entering the game with a No. 4 national ranking and hopes of winning the Southeastern Conference and playing for a national championship, MSU lost it all in a 31-17 decision to Ole Miss in the annual Battle for the Golden Egg at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“This is as tough as it gets,” said Mullen, whose team fell to 10-2 (6-2 in the SEC) and presumably out of contention for the first College Football Playoff. “I do not care about the stakes. This game is for bragging rights in this state. It is the most important game we play, so it is a devastating loss because of that.”
Like MSU’s last trip to Oxford, a 41-24 loss in 2012, Saturday’s visit ended in disappointment due to a poor second half. That day, the Bulldogs were outscored 24-7 after halftime. On Saturday, the second-half tally was 24-14 in favor of the Rebels. Senior quarterback Bo Wallace threw for 296 yards, but the offense used big play after big play to sink the Bulldogs. Ole Miss had 532 yards and had five players score touchdowns. That included a pair of killer plays: a 91-yard touchdown run by tailback Jaylen Walton and a 31-yard halfback touchdown pass by Jordan Wilkins to wide receiver Cody Core.
“It’s good to win a rivalry game,” Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said. “They are a very good football team. It’s a great feeling to reclaim the pride of our program and win the Egg Bowl.”
In the MSU locker room, the only feelings were dejection, disappointment, and, in the words of MSU quarterback Dak Prescott, “heartbreak.”
“There was silence,” Prescott said when asked of the postgame mood in the locker room. “Losing, giving away the Egg Bowl like that, it hurts. It always hurts to lose.”
Such was the feeling for the Bulldogs on a day that started with promise. With a win, the Bulldogs could have watched the Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama later in the day knowing a win by the Tigers would mean a second SEC Western Division title for the Bulldogs. Instead, those championship dreams vanished in a hail of red and blue highlights in the second half.
“A lot of guys are devastated on the team because we had a chance to compete for a championship,” Mullen said. “We didn’t do that.”
Ole Miss became the 10th home team in the last 11 years to win. It did so by providing an answer every time MSU built momentum.
Trailing 7-3 at halftime, MSU appeared to gain control early in the third quarter. On MSU’s second drive of the second half, Prescott capped a seven-play, 75-yard drive with a 1-yard run that gave MSU the lead for the first time.
It didn’t last long.
Wallace, who suffered an ankle injury last week in a 30-0 loss at Arkansas, connected with tight end Evan Engram for an 83-yard pass on the first play of the Rebels’ ensuing drive. The play set up a 1-yard touchdown run by backup quarterback Jeremy Liggins.
For every big play delivered by MSU, including a 32-yard touchdown pass from Prescott to De’Runnya Wilson early in the fourth quarter, Ole Miss counter-punched. For that score, the Rebels delivered the 31-yard halfback pass for a score that put the game out of reach.
Ole Miss (9-3, 5-3) earned a win against a Mullen-coached Bulldogs’ squad for just the second time in six seasons.
“There’s plenty of blame to go around,” Mullen said. “I’m not going to freaking sleep for 365 days until they come to our place.”
While the loss ended MSU’s championship aspirations, it still finished the regular season with 10 wins for the first time in program history and spent five weeks at No. 1, also a school-first.
To Mullen, none of that mattered after the game.
“We’re here to build a program that’s going to finish, that’s going to win championships,” Mullen said. “We are not going to rest until we do just that.”
MSU allowed a season-high 532 yards and 31 points, their highest total of the year in conference play. Wallace shredded the Bulldogs for 23 yards per completion. It was the end of a 365-day journey for Wallace, who fumbled into the end zone in MSU’s 17-10 overtime victory in the 2013 Battle for the Golden Egg.
“I felt like how last year ended pushed me the entire offseason,” Wallace said. “There wasn’t a day that went by I didn’t think about it.”
Most of Wallace’s big plays went to Engram, who caught five passes for 173 yards and took advantage of soft coverage in the middle of the defense.
“Defensively, we did a lot of good things expect for giving up huge chunks of yardage of some plays,” Mullen said. “You get upset when you give up 20-, 30-yard plays. To give up 80-, 90-yard plays … that’s inexcusable. It’s something we will have to get reps on in practice to fix.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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