Purser Hewitt of the Clarion-Ledger described it best: "On the sidelines a band garbed in red and blue played 'Give 'em Hell, Mississippi' and on the gridiron a team wearing the same colors did that very thing..." Unlike last year's brawl ending, the 1927 game closed with a highly dignified ceremony, the first presentation of the Golden Egg. As previously agreed in the inception of the egg, the schools first sang their alma maters, Ole Miss, as winner, sang first. The captains of the two teams, presidents of the two student bodies and the heads of the two schools met in the center of the field. B.M. Walker, president of A&M, presented the trophy to Alfred Hume, chancellor of the University, who turned it over to Ole Miss captain Applewhite. The Mississippian, Ole Miss student newspaper, reported "sincere handshaking" among players of both teams. And, "Throughout the day not a single demonstration of violence was committed..." Captain Applewhite proudly holding the Golden Egg, was carried from the field on the shoulders of "a score of students." The Egg is one of the most treasured possessions of either school. It is engraved with the score of each year's game and stands in a place of honor. When a tie occurred, the previous year's winner kept it for the first half of the year, then it went to the other school. 1978 The Ole Miss-Mississippi State series took on a new twist in 1978, a season which saw the Rebels 4-6 and the Bulldogs 6-4 heading into the season finale. As Steve Doyle of the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger reported in the Nov. 20 edition, "In a year in which neither team will be remembered, the Battle of the Golden Egg is a bowl game. Intense, heated, unbelievable in its lore, this one is for supremacy of the season. Bragging rights, recruiting edges and sheer pride are the guts of it. Every cliché you've ever heard about a single game applies to it." A year earlier, the Clarion-Ledger headline on game day had been "Egg Bowl Is Up For Scramble" and the following day it was "Egg Bowl '77: State 18, Ole Miss 14." In 1978, with both teams apparently out of the bowl picture, Executive Sports Editor Tom Patterson decided to do something extra to spice up coverage of the annual grudge match, instructing his staff to follow the "Egg Bowl" theme throughout the week. The result was an award winning special section on Sunday, which recounted in great detail the Rebels' stunning 27-7 victory over the highly-favored Bulldogs. In that game, John Fourcade made his first start at quarterback to become the first Ole Miss freshman since 1945 to receive the starting node at the signal-caller slot. The special section was a big success and the die was cast. Patterson's idea, for the most part, has been continued by the paper since 1978. Although it's officially the "Battle of the Golden Egg," most members of the media now refer to the annual bloodletting simply as the "Egg Bowl." 1991 "The Battle of the Golden Egg" returned to campus in 1991 as Mississippi State hosted Ole Miss in Starkville. It marked the first on-campus meeting between the two teams since 1972. The series continues to rotate between campus sites. ********************* The past three seasons (1998, 1999 and 2000) ESPN has televised the Egg Bowl game on Thanksgiving night, and will also broadcast the 2001 contest from Starkville on Nov. 22. After the 2000 game, both teams went on to win different trophies                       Ole Miss                                                                        MSU