Lane Kiffin explains how Ole Miss will prepare for Egg Bowl

Much like his quarterback, Lane Kiffin understands that the Ole Miss Rebels did not play up to their potential in a 31-17 win over the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Ole Miss couldn’t have gotten off to a better start on Saturday, as the Rebels’ first drive saw the offense use just five plays to march 65 yards and score a touchdown in 1:07 of game time. But things unraveled from there, and Kiffin revealed that his team has plenty of work to do ahead of the Egg Bowl matchup with Mississippi State.

Last year, in Kiffin’s first Egg Bowl as Ole Miss’ head coach, the Rebels played host to the bottom-dwelling Mississippi State Bulldogs and had no problem claiming a rivalry-week victory. Ole Miss won 31-24, but this year is different, according to Kiffin, both in terms of circumstances and Mississippi State’s talent.

“I think it’s different with the COVID aspect, so there wasn’t really a crowd element that way,” Kiffin said of last year’s contest. “I’m not diminishing rivalry games. But everyone says you’re supposed to treat them different, do all this different stuff — I’ve just never been around where you do that, all of a sudden practice more or try harder. That’s not how we do things. We try to get to 1-0 every week. So, I know you want to hear that we’ll do some magic thing this week because we’re playing at Mississippi State, but we’ve just got to prepare really well.”

Kiffin assures that Ole Miss’ preparation will remain unchanged heading into rivalry week. But hopefully, for the Rebels’ sake, the end product looks better than it did against Vanderbilt. Otherwise, as Matt Corral noted after the game, Ole Miss won’t have it easy against in-state rival Mississippi State.

Matt Corral issues warning to Ole Miss ahead of Egg Bowl

After the first ten points of the game, Ole Miss barely outscored Vanderbilt by a 21-17 margin, winning 31-17 in a game where the Commodores’ defense gave Corral everything he could handle. The Rebels were far from perfect on Saturday night, despite being heavily favored as a top-15 team hosting a bottom-dwelling SEC program. And now, as Ole Miss prepares to travel to Starkville for an Egg Bowl matchup against a dangerous, 7-4 Mississippi State team, Corral issued a warning to his teammates.

“All I’m thinking about is tomorrow and getting ready for [Mississippi] State,” Corral said, when asked of the emotional toll from senior night. “Just because it was a sloppy win today. You don’t really have to know football to see that. You can just see it in our play. We’ve just got to get better.

“This was nothing to celebrate,” Corral told his teammates postgame. “If we’re being honest, last week, we didn’t have the best practice Monday and Tuesday. … When we play teams of our caliber, they’re going to win. So, if we play like that against Mississippi State, we’re going to get blown out. That’s just the reality of it.”

Corral said Ole Miss had a sloppy week of practice, and many of the Rebels looked to be competing at 80 percent effort in preparation for Vanderbilt, and he said “it showed.”

Ole Miss may have amassed 470 yards of total offense, but it managed just 175 yards in the second half. The Rebels failed to punch in a first down on all four of its second-half third-down attempts, forcing Lane Kiffin to punt four times, and Vanderbilt’s offense got in a groove under its new starting quarterback Mike Wright.

Though Wright made a handful of mistakes, he gave Ole Miss’ defense trouble; Wright completed 22 of his 44 passing attempts for 241 yards and an interception, while rushing 13 times for 61 yards. By threatening to run the ball himself, Wright opened up holes for Vanderbilt running back Rocko Griffin, who had his best game of the season, taking 26 carries for 117 yards and a touchdown.

If Ole Miss’ offense continues to stall against Mississippi State in the upcoming Egg Bowl, Corral thinks the Rebels will be in for a close game. And if the defense lacks against Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense, it may not even be close.