A tumultuous season wrote one more painful chapter on Saturday afternoon as Ole Miss watched Mississippi State run wild, racking up 457 yards on the ground as well as run back to Starkville with the Egg Bowl Trophy after its 55-20 trouncing of the Rebels.
Mississippi State defensive back Jamal Peters intercepts a pass intended for Ole Miss wide reciever Quincy Adeboyejo during the second quarter of the Egg Bowl. Adeboyejo finished the game with three receptions for 40 yards in Ole Miss’ 55-20 loss against Mississippi State. (Photo by: Cameron Brooks)
“I felt like it would be a scoring fest, and we didn’t keep up with the scoring,” Head Coach Hugh Freeze said. “We had a chance to keep the game close and stay in it, keep the energy high and motivation high, and we failed at it.”
Time and time again, Mississippi State ran it right at Ole Miss and the Rebels did not have an answer. They were gashed for 250 yards on the ground in the first half alone, and trailed 27-20 at halftime.
The game seemingly got away from Ole Miss on its first offensive possession of the second half.
Its struggling defense had just mustered a three-and-out to start the half, and the Rebels were threatening to tie the game. On fourth down and one, Akeem Judd was stopped short of a first down at the Mississippi State 17-yard line, thwarting any sort of momentum Ole Miss was attempting to garner.
“Definitely,” Freeze said. “I thought the energy in the whole place kind of went down. There was good energy at the beginning of the second half. There was good energy in the stadium, and that was a crucial play.”
Mississippi State took complete control of the game after that, scoring 28 consecutive points while pitching a shutout en route to the win. Nick Fitzgerald ran for 258 yards and two scores, while his counterpart in the backfield, Aeris Williams, ran for 191 yards and two scores of his own. Fitzgerald averaged 18.4 yards in his 14 carries.
“We’ve got to look at everyone and everybody. We were not good,” Freeze said. “When you can’t stop their base stuff, we’ve got to figure out what exactly is it.”
It was a season filled with injuries, adversity and defeats, as the Rebels will be at home this bowl season for the first time in Freeze’s tenure.
“It is very disappointing because we set the expectations so high coming in. You work with these guys all summer and all spring,” Javon Patterson said. “It hurts. It hurts bad. You’ve just got to come back to work.”
Patterson was one of the few spared on a beaten and battered offensive line, and on Saturday night, the more the defense struggled, the more pressure weighed down on the offense.
“You kind of feel it throughout the game. When you go three-and-out, that’s not how it is supposed to go,” Akeem Judd said.
If there was a bright spot to pull from a sea of frustration, Judd ran for 107 yards on 19 carries in his final game in an Ole Miss uniform. The senior stabilized an Ole Miss run game that dealt with injuries early on in this 2016 season.
“When your name is called and the coaches want to run the ball a lot, you’ve just got to do what you can do,” Judd said. “We have great linemen. We had some guys dinged up, and some of the schemes we went up against were a little difficult.”
This game was one final blow to a team that had endured devastating punches all year that didn’t spare anyone, including Freeze.
“It’s been the toughest (season) of my professional career,” Freeze said. “Whether it be from the disappointments to the injuries to everything that is going on around our program, it has been a very difficult season. I know the testing of your faith produces endurance, and we’ll find out if you’re genuine in who you say you are, and it is tough at times. It is a battle. It is difficult.”
The Rebels will enter an offseason filled with uncertainty and will do so with a new defensive coordinator. It was announced before the game that Defensive Coordinator Dave Wommack will retire after five years at the school and 38 in the coaching profession.
“He’s been in this business for 38 years and done some remarkable things,” Freeze said. “He’s impacted young men, and he’s the type of guy you want in the profession. He cares about the young men and has been good at it for a long time.”
This seventh loss put perhaps the most bitter taste of them all in the mouth Ole Miss, and the only thing it can do is hope to wash it out and look ahead next season, because the one in its rearview mirror was largely forgettable.
