Egg Bowl - Series History

Series History

Up until 1926, Ole Miss had won only five times out of twenty-three. When Ole Miss beat what was then known as Mississippi A&M College 7-6, the Ole Miss fans rushed the field, some trying to tear the goalposts down. A&M fans did not take well to the Ole Miss fans destroying their property and fights broke out. Some A&M fans defended the goal posts with wooden chairs, and several injuries were reported. To prevent such events in the future, students of the two schools created the "Golden Egg", a large trophy which has been awarded to the winning team each year since 1927. The trophy is a large football-shaped brass piece mounted to a wooden base and traditionally symbolizes supremacy in college football in the state of Mississippi for the year. The footballs used in American football in the 1920s were considerably more ovoid and blunter than those in use today and similar to the balls still used in rugby; the trophy thus, to modern eyes, more resembles an egg than a football. The awarding of the "Golden Egg" was instituted in 1927 by joint agreement between the two schools' student bodies. In the event of a tie, the school that won the game the previous year keeps the trophy for the first half of the new year and then the trophy is sent to the other school for the second half of the new year.

The game is a typical example of the intrastate rivalries between several public universities in the U.S. These games are usually between one bearing the state's name alone, and the land-grant university, often styled as "State University." Like most such rivalries, it is contested at the end of the regular season, in this case on Thanksgiving weekend, sometimes on Thanksgiving Day (or, in recent years, Thanksgiving Night) itself. At one point the level of rivalry was such that a victory by one of the schools in this game could salvage what had otherwise been a poor season. This was however proven not to always be the case when in 2004 Ole Miss won the game but fired its coach, David Cutcliffe, the next week, following a disappointing season.

For many years this game was played at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson, which seats approximately 62,000. Besides being centrally located in the state, at the time it was the only venue in the state capable of seating the anticipated crowd; for many years Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, seated only about 32,000 and Scott Field in Starkville, seated only about 31,000. Both have been considerably expanded and are now capable of accommodating the crowds which can realistically be expected, and both on-campus venues have been continually upgraded to the point where they are actually superior in amenities to Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium. Ole Miss leads the overall series 61-42-6. However, since the Egg Bowl was moved back to the campuses in 1991, Mississippi State has won 12 games to Ole Miss' 10.