Mississippi Rebels quarterback Bo Wallace (14) drops back to pass the ball during the game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Vaught Hemingway Stadium. (Spruce Derden/USA TODAY Sports)
OXFORD Miss. Amid the chaos he kept the prize tucked safely away. First in his left arm and then sensing potential danger he shifted it to his right. The game was over Ole Miss 31 Mississippi State 17 but Bo Wallace was not letting go.
Not this time the Rebels quarterback said. I m keeping the football.
GAME REPORT Ole Miss likely spoils Mississippi State s Playoff hopes
Away from the chaos Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen surveyed the damage and denied what had been ripped away from the Bulldogs. Standing just outside the visitors locker room he said
I didn t think we were getting in the playoff anyway.
Maybe Mullen was correct. Perhaps the Bulldogs who started the day No. 4 in the College Football Playoff Top 25 would have been leapfrogged by TCU Ohio State or Baylor by the time the final rankings were released.
I m sure we made a lot of people around the country happy Mullen said. And maybe a lot of (selection) committee members breathed a big sigh of relief right now. They don t have to consider it.
But as he added We ll never know.
And on Saturday evening at Vaught Hemingway Stadium Mullen insisted that the rubble that remained of Mississippi State s place in the bigger picture was only collateral damage. He knows only this the next 364 days will suck.
This is as tough as it gets Mullen said. I don t care about the stakes. This game is for bragging rights in the state. It s the most important game we play. So obviously it is a devastating loss.
WEEK 14 Winners and losers
Or because both sides of a fierce rivalry are inevitably bound up together it was an exhilarating victory. That was the biggest thing according to both sides and there s no real reason to doubt them. Since Mullen s arrival Mississippi State had won four of five games against Ole Miss which he referred to Saturday night as them and regularly calls That School Up North.
When Mullen said later It s just disgusting to lose this game Wallace might as well have been standing next to him nodding.
Mississippi State Bulldogs head coach Dan Mullen (L) talks to Mississippi State Bulldogs quarterback Dak Prescott (15) against the Mississippi Rebels at Vaught Hemingway Stadium. The Rebels won 31 17. (Spruce Derden/USA TODAY Sports)
A year ago overtime in Starkville Wallace had the football headed for the end zone for the tying touchdown when it was poked loose. Mississippi State recovered. Game over.
There wasn t a day that went by that I didn t think about it Wallace said.
Which is why he knelt one final time Saturday draining the final seconds off the clock and then hung tightly onto that football until he got to the locker room and handed it off to his parents.
We ll put it in the trophy case and keep it forever he said.
For a year anyway the Rebels will do the same with the Golden Egg. But no one denied that eliminating Mississippi State (10 2 6 2 SEC) from the playoff picture was a very nice bonus.
Only a few weeks ago after Ole Miss upset Alabama on this same field it seemed the Rebels and Bulldogs might be headed for a monumental showdown. But Ole Miss lost three SEC games in a row and could only watch as Mississippi State began to distance itself from its in state rival. First the Bulldogs ascended to No. 1 in the polls and then after a loss to Alabama fell only to the No. 4 slot in the all important College Football Playoff rankings still in position to make the tournament.
We felt we were a better team than them Wallace said. We should have been in that spot. To make sure they re out of the four team Playoff is something special.
In the process the Rebels all but ensured the SEC will have at most one team in the playoff. Unless complete chaos reigns everywhere else in college football in which case even Mississippi State could jump back into the mix it s down to Alabama or maybe Missouri (and if Missouri upset the Crimson Tide for the SEC championship there would be great anxiety down South as the brackets are revealed).
Debate the strength of the SEC West all you want just not its depth. The division may not have a great team it could be that the top teams have declined a bit even as the bottom feeders got better. But when Mississippi State athletic director Scott Stricklin described it as the toughest division in the history of mankind he had a point.
All seven teams are bowl eligible. The difference between the division winner (Alabama) and the seventh place team (Arkansas) was literally one point.
There s a bunch of teams Mullen said that are gonna be out there scratching their heads and saying What if over and over. LSU could be scratching their head and they finished 8 4. Arkansas could be scratching their head and they finished last in the West. It s this division.
And Mississippi State which has won 10 regular season games for the first time in school history What ifs there too.
It s a dream season for most people Mullen said but it doesn t even get you the West title.
It won t get them into the playoff either but then Mullen insisted afterward they weren t getting in anyway. With a win and he was assuming an Alabama win in the Iron Bowl too the Bulldogs would have presented an issue for the selection committee Should Mississippi State with only a loss at Alabama have been in the playoff ahead of other one loss teams that were also conference champions But it s no longer a dilemma.
If we had won today there would have been some really interesting conversations that would have shaped the future of the playoff Mullen said. If we had won and not gone to the (SEC) championship game. If we had sat there at 11 1 in the regular season No. 4 winning this game on the road it would have probably shaped (things). If we had made it it would have probably steered the playoffs in the future. If we didn t we probably would have looked at things a lot differently.
Instead the landscape is much different. Wherever the SEC West falls on the spectrum from good to great the division cannibalized itself. Or maybe at least in Oxford a rivalry did what rivalries do.
After a 30 0 loss at Arkansas last week Ole Miss (9 3 5 3 SEC) had fallen all the way to No. 19 in the College Football Playoff Top 25. The Rebels were battered and seemed beaten down.
Wallace nursing an injured right ankle barely practiced this week. The ankle was heavily taped during the game and his mobility was clearly limited and afterward he did interviews wearing a big black walking boot.
Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze called plays especially in the second half as though the Rebels had nothing to lose. That included a halfback pass for a 31 yard touchdown and a 31 17 lead early in the fourth quarter.
I was willing to throw everything we had at em Freeze said. We had more if we needed it.
Like Mullen Freeze insisted the game was more important than the bigger picture stakes.
It wasn t about us spoiling the year for them as much as reclaiming what we think is ours Freeze said.
Which only means that in both locker rooms denying the possibilities makes the big picture easier to view.
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