JJ Pegues will be keeping his emotions in check in first return to Auburn since transferring to Ole Miss
The transfer portal creates a lot of firsts again for seasoned college football players. For Ole Miss defensive lineman JJ Pegues this weekend is his turn to experience those firsts.
After spending the first two years of his college career at Auburn the Oxford, Mississippi native made the decision to hit the portal and return home to play minutes from his childhood home.
Pegues has already gotten the experience of playing his former team for the first time, but Saturday drops the other show in this new portal era. He will be taking on Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium for the first time.
This game did not sneak up on Pegues as it is a known opponent coming up on the Rebels schedule. But this week is different for the former Oxford High School standout.
“(Going to be) Like any other week,” Pegues said after Tuesday’s practice. “Coach (Lane Kiffin) talked to me and he was just telling me just treat it like any other game or any other week and go dominate and do what I do.
“Obviously, I played there for two years and it’s just going to be great. A lot of emotions going in but at the end of the day we got to go in to a hostile environment and get a win.”
Pegues is well aware of the atmosphere that awaits Ole Miss at Jordan-Hare Stadium. During Tuesday’s practice the Auburn fight song and pumped in crowd noise could be heard.
There is a mystique surrounding Jordan-Hare that the Rebels have not seemed to overcome during a night game. During the 2021 season Pegues was on the other sideline when Ole Miss fell to Auburn to 0-9 in the series against the Tigers in their home stadium after sunset.
Now, Pegues has the chance to lead his hometown program to a historic victory and one that would mark the first back-to-back wins for Ole Miss in the series since 1951-52.
Lane Kiffin was named the next head coach at Ole Miss 11 days prior to Pegues choosing to sign with Auburn.
Maybe it was a missed connection or Kiffin not able to get to Pegues before putting pen to paper to sign with the Tigers, though Kiffin has said previously that he was informed Pegues was firmly in Auburn’s camp at the time of his hiring.
Fast forward two football seasons and the Kiffin-Pegues connection was successful on the second opportunity with the latter jumping over to Ole Miss 25 months after he signed his NLI with Auburn.
Having been on the other side of this SEC West rivalry, Pegues is aware of what the Auburn faithful can provide in a home-field advantage on game night.
“I feel like the crowd plays a big part in the environment and the energy when I was there,” Pegues said. “Doesn’t matter what our record was or what the score was. We felt the energy from the crowd, definitely at home. We felt like we could go undefeated there. …I know they’re going to have the crowd energy with them and they have a ranked team coming in.”
Dating back to the start of last season Auburn has an overall home record of 6-4 and 2-2 against SEC opponents.
