Golden Egg Trophy

College Football Rivalries

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[edit] Summary

The Egg Bowl is a nickname given to the annual college football game between Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss"). The official name of the game is "The Battle for the Golden Egg." The name derives from a large trophy which has been awarded to the winning team each year since the 1920s. The trophy consists of 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 shape of the football on the trophy naturally depicts a football from the era when the trophy was first awarded. The trophy thus to modern eyes more resembles an egg than a football; for many years the game has thus been called the "Egg Bowl" and the "Battle for the Golden Egg".

[edit] History

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 proven not to be the current case when in 2004 Ole Miss won the game and fired its coach, David Cutcliffe, the next week, despite Cutcliffe posting a 44-29 record in six seasons at Oxford. In 1976 and 1977, Mississippi State won the games on the field, but Mississippi was later retroactively awarded victories by forfeit.

For many years this game was contested at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson, which seats approximately 62,000 spectators. There were several reasons behind this. Largely, 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 41,000. 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, so the decision was made to move the game into a home-and-home series in the 1990s. It was decided that the on-campus atmosphere is generally better; the game is now more useful for both schools as a recruiting tool, and this has the additional advantage of only requiring the bulk of one team's core fan base to make a road trip rather than both of them as was previously the case.

[edit] Results

Mississippi victories are shaded ██ blue. Mississippi State victories shaded in ██ red. Ties shaded white.