XFORD, Miss. — In what was billed as one of the biggest days in the state’s college football history, Mississippi and Mississippi State did not disappoint on Saturday, each scoring an upset over an undefeated opponent.
In Starkville, 12th-ranked Mississippi State, led by the dynamic quarterback Dak Prescott, dominated sixth-ranked Texas A&M, 48-31. And in Oxford, 11th-ranked Mississippi scored two touchdowns in the game’s final five and a half minutes to rally past third-ranked Alabama, 23-17.
It was a remarkable ending to a weeklong celebration for the Bulldogs and the Rebels, who have had snippets of success over the last 40 seasons but have struggled to make a dent nationally or in the Southeastern Conference.
For now, that has changed.
Ole Miss and Mississippi State, each 5-0 over all and 2-0 in the SEC, sit atop the SEC West, perhaps the more powerful division in what is widely considered the nation’s most powerful conference.
Both teams will almost certainly move into the top 10 when the national polls are released Sunday.
The Rebels earned their spot by ending a 10-game losing streak against the Crimson Tide, one of college football’s most dominant teams. Nick Saban, who is his eighth year as the team’s coach, has won three national titles at Alabama.
The Rebels trailed by 14-3 at halftime, but Bo Wallace threw three second-half touchdown passes to pull out the victory, his 34-yarder to Vince Sanders with 5 minutes 29 seconds left tying the score at 17-17. After Ole Miss recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, Wallace connected with Jaylen Walton for a 10-yard score with 2:54 left to put the Rebels ahead, 23-17.
Alabama blocked the extra-point attempt, giving the Crimson Tide some hope. But cornerback Senquez Golson sealed the Rebels’ victory, intercepting a Blake Sims pass in the back of the end zone with 37 seconds remaining.
“The feeling is indescribable right now,” Golson said, adding, “We played an incredible game.”
Ole Miss’s third-year coach, Hugh Freeze, said on his postgame radio show, “It’s one of the greatest victories in the history of our school.”
There have been games in Mississippi with more at stake, like the 2003 showdown in which Eli Manning and the Rebels lost to Louisiana State, 17-14, in what amounted to an SEC West championship game.
But there has never been a fall Saturday in Mississippi quite like this one, with two games of this magnitude played back to back, separated by 100 miles of countryside.
“I really do think it’s the biggest college football Saturday we’ve ever had in Mississippi,” said Rick Cleveland, a former sportswriter and editor who is now the executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
The buildup began when Mississippi State upset L.S.U. on Sept. 20. When Ole Miss beat Memphis on Sept. 27 to move to 4-0 for the first time since 1970, the stage was set for a block party the likes of which Oxford and Starkville rarely see.
“I can’t even tell you how many reporters I’ve talked to this week,” Cleveland said.
ESPN’s “College GameDay” took its cast to Oxford for the first time, setting up in the Grove, the 10-acre park in the middle of the Ole Miss campus. The show was set to begin at 8 a.m.; by 6:30, before sunrise, tens of thousands of fans were packed shoulder to shoulder.
The SEC Network held its pregame show, “SEC Nation,” in Starkville, where Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen was reunited with Tim Tebow, the star quarterback turned sportscaster.
Mullen was the offensive coordinator at Florida when Tebow and the Gators won two national championships. He has often compared his current quarterback, Prescott, to Tebow, and the nation got to see why on Saturday.
Prescott, a fast and elusive 6-foot-3 junior who started seven games in 2013, threw for two touchdowns and ran for three, completing 19 of 25 passes for 259 yards and carrying the ball 23 times for 77 yards.
Mullen, talking to reporters after the game, teared up when asked to compare Prescott and Tebow.
“They’re winners, and they’re leaders,” Mullen said. “I don’t know if you can have a better trait in life than that.”
When he was hired six years ago, Mullen promised fans that the Bulldogs would compete for championships, and he took the Bulldogs to four bowl games in his first five years, as well as four wins over Ole Miss.
But his teams have struggled against the SEC’s top teams, and last season, as Mississippi State sputtered to a 4-6 start, some fans started to wonder if Mullen was going to be able to deliver on his promise. The program last won an SEC title in 1941 and has played in the SEC championship game just once (in 1998) since the SEC went to two divisions in 1992.
Still, the Bulldogs rallied to win their final three games of 2013, including an overtime win over favored Ole Miss and a rout of Rice in the Liberty Bowl, and have now won eight consecutive games.
“Today was special,” Mullen told reporters Saturday. “This is so rewarding, seeing everyone buying in. The fans believing in us is special.”
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