OXFORD — Elgton Jenkins spent 3 hours and 6 minutes running Ole Miss Rebels out of the way with one player behind him, a ballcarrier. His final trip down the field at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium had a couple dozen Bulldogs behind him.
This time, he was carrying the golden egg.
Mississippi State’s center was part of a punishing ground game, flattening Ole Miss for 309 yards and four touchdowns in No. 22 MSU’s 35-3 Egg Bowl blowout. Most satisfying for the Bulldogs (8-4, 4-4 Southeastern Conference) was the way they did it.
“We were going to run inside zone, we were going to run the ball straight at them until they stopped it,” quarterback Nick Fitzgerald said.
For the most part, that’s exactly what MSU did. There were a few run game wrinkles in there, many of them involving pulling guards as part of inverted option looks, where the running back is the perimeter threat and the quarterback is the interior threat, but otherwise keeping things simple was enough.
It was enough for Fitzgerald to run for 117 yards and two touchdowns. It was enough for running back Kylin Hill to run for 108 and a score, and it was enough for Aeris Williams to run for 64 and a score of his own. All three of them averaged at least 5.8 yards per carry; Fitzgerald and Hill were 6.4 or better.
Williams’ first four carries of the game with for 9, 16, 13 and 11 yards.
This is the way coach Joe Moorhead drew it up. He said earlier in the week he believed offensive balance is required to win championships and that’s why he has worked tirelessly to install it, but added there are times where the gameplan advantage of a strength against a weakness comes into account.
The conference’s second-best rushing attack against its worst run defense was enough to convince him.
“We were going to establish our physicality at the line of scrimmage and be able to run the ball with Kylin, Aeris and Nick, and I think we were able to do that and run the ball well,” Moorhead said. “We had some timely completions on third down and in the red zone, and that was the plan all week.”
They stuck to that plan even when the Rebels (5-7, 1-7 SEC) made it difficult. Late in the second quarter and into the third, Ole Miss started to load the box with bodies and send them on run blitzes, and it worked for a while: of MSU’s 10 runs of 10 yards or more, five came in the first quarter. After averaging 8.7 yards per carry in the first quarter, it averaged just 4.4 in the third.
Moorhead credited it to more of those aggressive blitzes on first and second down than MSU was expected. Hill acknowledged he doesn’t feel 100 percent from the hamstring injury that’s been bothering him for weeks, and it’s likely that played a role, too.
Yet, MSU’s first offensive play of the fourth quarter was a 27-yard run by Fitzgerald. Three straight 4-yard runs that followed set up an 18-yard burst for Hill. MSU was up against an opponent that knew it was going to run, ran anyway and ran it well.
This is the version of the offense Hill has been waiting for all season. He knew it was there for the taking, even when the public doubts were at their loudest. Hill credited team leadership and complete belief in the locker room that the new coaching staff would not lead them astray.
The proof of that belief was in Jenkins’ hands, as he took it to midfield and hoisted it over his head. The proof was in the golden egg MSU has coveted for a year.
“I feel like we can run the ball on any team when everything’s clicking,” Hill said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.