Mississippi Capitalizes, Earns Liberty Berth

Liberty Bowl-bound Mississippi knows how to take advantage of the breaks.

As a result, the Rebels earned a 21-11 victory over arch-rival Mississippi State Saturday and will carry that momentum into their Dec. 28 bowl game where they probably will play Air Force.

“It wasn’t one of our better performances. Give Mississippi State a lot of credit, they played good, solid football,” said Mississippi Coach Billy Brewer, who is taking his third Rebel team to a bowl in his seven seasons at his alma mater.

“We were patched up and we played hard for 11 games. This is probably as good an overall performance by a team that I have coached. To accomplish the seventh win today against a solid intrastate rival makes this victory very meaningful.”

In a Southeastern Conference defensive struggle before a crowd of 43,218, Ed Thigpen and Randy Baldwin scored on one-yard runs and opportunistic Ole Miss (7-4) won for the sixth time in the last seven games of the series.

Ending a two-game losing streak, Mississippi, 4-3 in the SEC, used a fumble recovery to set up a short second-quarter touchdown drive and then went 93 yards after a pass interception for one of its two fourth-quarter scores.

Mississippi State (5-6 overall, 1-6 in the SEC), was in the game until a gamble backfired late in the third quarter and Ole Miss scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns.

Trailing, 7-3, Mississippi State had a fourth down and a yard for a first down at the Ole Miss seven, but Todd Jordan’s pitch to Jesse Anderson went awry and the Bulldogs lost five yards.

The loss was particularly disappointing for Mississippi State, which was 1-10 a year ago and had a shot at a bowl game until a loss last week at Louisiana State.

“It was a physical game and I think we played really well in some spots,” Mississippi State Coach Rockey Felker said. “But when we had the opportunities, we didn’t take advantage of them.

“In particular, the fourth-down call from inside the 10. It seemed after that, all the momentum swung over to the Ole Miss side.”

Mississippi State hurt itself with turnovers--losing the ball three times--and had a couple of costly penalties in key situations.