The Egg Bowl is back on Thanksgiving! How do Ole Miss and Mississippi State fans feel about this?

On Thursday night, a game that’s been played on Thanksgiving Day a total of 21 times will return to the holiday prime time slot. Ole Miss will travel to No. 14 Mississippi State in their 114th meeting and first Turkey Day battle since 2013.

Although most of these games were played either on or very close to Thanksgiving, the vast majority were played on the following Saturdays:

Out of the 108 matchups in this series, all but 12 have been played just before, on, or just after Thanksgiving. From 1998-2003, ESPN broadcast the game on Thanksgiving night. From ‘04-‘06 it was moved back to the Saturday after Thanksgiving and was not on TV. In ‘07 and ‘08 the games was played the day after Thanksgiving. Since then it has been televised the Saturday after Turkey Day.

The game will be back on Thanksgiving next season, too.

To get a sense of what fans think about the big game moving back to Thanksgiving, I asked writers from SB Nation’s Mississippi State and Ole Miss sites, For Whom the Cowbell Tolls and Red Cup Rebellion.

Justin Strawn, For Whom the Cowbell Tolls: There are lots of reasons why the Egg Bowl being played on Thanksgiving is both good and bad.

For the good, it’s a great rivalry that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves because it is so rare that both teams have had really good years at the same time. So when this game is on Thanksgiving, it gives it a spotlight that it doesn’t usually get.

Now, the bad part about it is obvious. Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays, and fans who go have to figure out if they can make attending the game work into their plans, and if they can’t, then they have to make a choice.

Personally, I’ve always thought the exposure of playing in a marquee spot outweighed all the other factors. But this year, I’m experiencing all the other things. I’ve never had a chance to attend the game since I got married and had kids, but this year I can. Trying to figure out a way to spend time with the family and get to the game has been difficult.

Jim Lohmar, Red Cup Rebellion: My thoughts are positive, and I’d say that’s also the case for most of the people I know. I know the game’s in Starkville this year, but it’s great to eat an entire Thanksgiving meal in the Grove when it’s in Oxford. In fact, I can’t think of any place I’d rather be for that event.

Some will have other thoughts — “our very important rivalry game has been relegated to Thursday, and a major holiday at that,” — which is absurd. This is the only college football game of the day, and even vaguely interested college football fans will be tuning in.

Strawn, For Whom the Cowbell Tolls: Two stick out for me.

In 1998, Mississippi State had just beaten Arkansas and put themselves in the driver’s seat to win the SEC West. All they had to do was win the Egg Bowl in Oxford. The Bulldogs did win, with relative ease.

Second would be in 2013. Mississippi State was 5-6 and Ole Miss was 7-4, and most people had already crowned Ole Miss the state’s only program to be relevant on the national scene. The Bulldogs were down to their third-string quarterback. The defense kept the team in the game, and Mississippi State trailed 10-7 entering the fourth quarter. After a Damien Williams interception, Dak Prescott began to warm up; he had only been cleared to play earlier that afternoon. Dak would enter the game and lead the Bulldogs to a tying field goal. On fourth-and-goal in the first overtime possession, Prescott would run for the go-ahead touchdown. On the ensuing possession, Bo Wallace had a clear path to the end zone, but Nickoe Whitley would strip him of the football from behind, and the Bulldogs recovered in the end zone. The Egg Bowl win and win in the Liberty Bowl is what many believe propelled the amazing 2014 that saw the team go on to be No. 1 in the polls for five weeks.

Zach Berry, Red Cup Rebellion: After 2010 and 2011, Ole Miss fans were miserable and in desperate search of something of substance. In comes Hugh Freeze in year one, winning five games, running a fun offense, and on the verge of bowl eligibility. The only thing standing in his way was in-state rival.

All cheesy sayings aside, it truly was a night to remember. The visiting Bulldogs were riding a three-game win streak, and in a series where home-field advantage means very little, it was extremely stressful thinking of what a fourth loss would do to this program’s psyche.

But, not to worry because this game was never, ever in question. Former surgeon Bo Wallace tossed for damn near 300 yards and five scores, and Jeff Scott ran for 100-plus.

The real story was Donte Moncrief and the song that will live in Egg Bowl folklore. A hometown rap group by the name King Kobraz came out with the banger “Rebelz (Feed Moncrief)” just in time for him to torch both of State’s NFL corners, Jonathan Banks and Darius Slay, en route to seven catches for 171 yards and three touchdowns.

I was watching from a bar in Murray Hill in New York City (shout out to The Wharf) with the NYC Ole Miss Alumni group, and not a single person in that place could believe it or keep their seats. After three years of misery and coming off an awful, 2-10 season under known leech Houston Nutt, this not only gave Ole Miss fans something to get excited about, it sparked Freeze’s rise (and eventual fall) in Oxford. And in turn, it gave fans another reason to celebrate on Thanksgiving.

Lohmar, Red Cup Rebellion: My thoughts are those of relief. This marks the end of the investigation season(s), and we can get it out of the way early, then sit back into the offseason and enjoy our Saturday slate without having to fret alongside all the other rivalry games out there.

As for the game itself, this one’s always a weird animal. The past 30 meetings have seen them split, 15-15. Neither team has won more than three years in a row in that stretch. Dan Mullen dumped 55 points on Ole Miss in Oxford in 2016, and I’m sure the players that were there are feeling that this week, especially the seniors. They’ll get up for it, at least for three quarters, before Mullen and Nick Fitzgerald just overwhelm Ole Miss’ defense. I expect it to be high-scoring.

Strawn, For Whom the Cowbell Tolls: I think the exposure is what makes it worth it.

And this could be an interesting game because we still haven’t heard what the NCAA sanctions for Ole Miss are going to be, and many Ole Miss fans blame Mississippi State for their NCAA troubles. Things could get chippy on the field, especially before the game actually starts.

On the field, the game should be a game Mississippi State wins in convincing fashion. But you know what they say, throw out the records when rivals play.

The Golden Egg was first proposed by members of Iota Sigma, an Ole Miss honorary activities fraternity. As thoughts of last year’s game, Iota Sigma proposed that a trophy be awarded in a dignified ceremony designed to calm excited fans. One proposal that was rejected was to send the goal posts to the winning side each year.

A&M [MSU at the time] approved the suggestion of an award, and Ole Miss, two weeks before the game, officially added its approval. The trophy, to be called “The Golden Egg”, would be a regulation-size gold-plated football mounted on a pedestal. Costs of approximately $250 would be shared by both schools. Ole Miss students held a tag day to raise funds.

The year before that, after a 7-6 Ole Miss victory, the matchup ended in a brawl:

After the final pistol, the Ole Miss boys rushed to the field, warmly congratulated their warrior, and proceeded to tear down the goal. The Aggies swarmed the field, but were late to save the goals. A fistic combat ensued, but the melee was put to a stop by the more sober minded before the Aggie “chair brigade” got into serious action.

That bad blood between these two fan bases is, um very much alive, as my colleague Steven Godfrey reminded us in 2013:

But on Egg Bowl week it’s still suitable to boil everything down to the rednecks vs. the country club.

Before the game, you notice how willing the participants are to play to their own stereotypes.

This is not the Iron Bowl. There are no national titles at stake. There haven’t been since the early 1960s. The Egg Bowl is a potent distillation of Mississippi as compared to its neighboring Southern cultures, a stronger high and a harsher burn.

Live in Mississippi long enough with an open ear and you can learn to hate everybody. Trust me.

You’re either a red-dirt, hillbilly dipshit, kin to farming families outside Tupelo (and a cheater) or a racist, fork-tongued Jackson lawyer (and a cheater). And tonight everybody’s a damn cheater, a “cheeeetin son of a bitch” precisely, as it echoes through the stands.

I’ve often wondered out loud around Oxford and Starkville that if everybody’s cheating so damn much, is anybody really cheating? The answer around Thanksgiving week is, “yeah, those sons of bitches are.”

Ahead of the 2017 matchup, Mississippi State and Ole Miss urged fans not to fight each other with a joint statement:

As for the “Egg Bowl” nickname, it wasn’t coined until 1978. Both teams were having down years and not bowl eligible, so Tom Patterson of the Clarion-Ledger used “Egg Bowl” throughout the week leading up to the game, to try and give it some importance.