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Ole Miss football players hold up the Golden Egg trophy and celebrate with their fans at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium after beating Mississippi State 26-14 in the Egg Bowl on Friday. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss running back Ulysses Bentley IV (24) breaks throughMississippi State's defense on his way to an 89-yard touchdown during Friday's Egg Bowl game in Oxford. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss running back Ulysses Bentley IV (24) sprints past Mississippi State defensive back Brice Pollock (14) on his way to an 89-yard touchdown during Friday's Egg Bowl game in Oxford. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Mississippi State quarterback Michael Van Buren (0) hands off to running back Davon Booth in the first half of Friday's Egg Bowl game against Ole Miss. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Mississippi State running back Davon Booth carries the football against Ole Miss. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss' JJ Pegues (38) rumbles into the end zone for a touchdown during Friday's Egg Bowl game against Mississippi State. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Mississippi State's Nick Barr-Mira kicks off in the Egg Bowl against Ole Miss. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss' Caden Davis (41) kicks a field goal in the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Mississippi State wide receiver Jordan Mosley catches a pass as Ole Miss' Chris Graves Jr. (32) defends. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss wide receiver Juice Wells (3) jumps to catch a pass in front of Mississippi State defender Brice Pollock (14) during Friday's Egg Bowl game in Oxford. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Mississippi State quarterback Michael Van Buren (0) throws a pass during Friday's Egg Bowl game against Ole Miss. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart (2) runs with the football against Mississippi State. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Mississippi State's Kyle Ferrie (80) kicks a PAT in the Egg Bowl against Ole Miss. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin watches his team warm up before Friday's Egg Bowl game against Mississippi State. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby talks to his offense during a timeout in Friday's Egg Bowl game against Ole Miss. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart (2) takes a snap against Mississippi State. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Ole Miss' offensive line breaks the huddle to run a play against Mississippi State. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

OXFORD — Ole Miss might not have turned in the dominating performance it needed to impress the College Football Playoff selection committee, but it still left the field with a nice prize.

Ole Miss scored 17 unanswered points after falling behind early, and finally put away a stubborn Mississippi State team with a fourth-quarter touchdown and a clock-killing drive to win 26-14 in the annual Egg Bowl rivalry game on Friday.

“We are the team that showed we can beat anybody,” Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart said. “My pitch is that you look at the conferences and you look at the schedule. Obviously, we slipped up some games and did things we were not supposed to do and that is going to bite us, but I definitely think without a doubt that we are one of the best teams in the country.”

Mississippi State (2-10, 0-8 Southeastern Conference) finished its first winless season in the SEC since 2002, although it did not do go down without a fight.

The Bulldogs went toe-to-toe with the Rebels (9-3, 5-3) all afternoon. They led 14-10 at the end of the first quarter and had a chance to cut a late 12-point deficit back to one score after Michael Van Buren hit Kevin Coleman with a 44-yard pass to the 1-yard line.

Ole Miss stopped the Bulldogs with a goal line stand to keep the score at 26-14, however, and then the offense kept the ball for the last 5:46 to run out the clock.

Van Buren finished with 280 passing yards, including a 34-yard touchdown to Coleman in the first quarter, and he also ran for a touchdown.

The Bulldogs only had 39 rushing yards as a team, however. Van Buren threw two interceptions and was sacked three times.

“I wouldn’t even say this one stings, this one hurts. I feel like we played really good defensively and offensively. It just came down to a couple of big plays where they executed better than we did on our assignments,” said Mississippi State safety Isaac Smith, who had 12 tackles.

Ole Miss entered Friday at No. 14 in the College Football Playoff rankings. The top 12 make the final bracket that will be announced after next week’s conference championship games, so the Rebels still need a couple of teams ahead of them to lose this weekend. One of those, No. 7 Georgia, beat in-state rival Georgia Tech 44-42 in eight overtimes later Friday.

A convincing win over a struggling rival would’ve certainly provided some style points for the Rebels, but it was all they could do to win.

Ulysses Bentley IV gave Ole Miss the lead for good, at 17-14, with his 89-yard touchdown run midway through the second quarter. Caden Davis kicked a 43-yard field goal in the third quarter, and then Dart threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Caden Prieskorn with 9:56 left in the fourth to make it 26-14.

The defense ended Mississippi State’s last best chance with the goal line stand.

Dart finished just 14-of-24 passing for 143 yards — a season-low — and also ran for 77 yards. Bentley had a season-high 136 rushing yards on 20 carries, with a good chunk of it coming on his long touchdown run.

“This is a huge game in this state, and I think we felt that early, even though we told them records don’t matter. Weird things happen in these Egg Bowls,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said.

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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