Ole Miss’ coaches and players know Mississippi State is going to bring the noise. They also know they’ll play a part in exactly how much.

The Rebels will make the trip to Starkville on Saturday for the annual Egg Bowl, where the cowbells will be out in full force from the Bulldog faithful trying to do their part to help Mississippi State get a win. Ole Miss is piping in audio recordings of the ringing of cowbells during practice this week to get as acclimated to the sound as it can without the real thing.

But Ole Miss would like to keep the ringing to a minimum, and perhaps the only way to do that is to be the first team to get on the scoreboard.

“That would be very good for us to get the crowd out of the game early,” Ole Miss tight end Evan Engram said. “Our defense has been flying around. They’re confident about this game, so if they can get stops so we can do our thing as an offensive unit, we can kind of take the crowd out of the game pretty early and put some points on the board.”

Fast starts have helped contribute to the recent success home teams have had in the series as of late. The home team has won the last four Egg Bowls and scored first in all of them.

“Any time you play on the road, if you can do that and calm (the fans) down a little bit, it helps,” offensive coordinator Dan Werner said. “I don’t even know if it’s so much you jumping out, but if they jump out, then it really gets bad.”

Going in hot
Ole Miss never got going in its last trip to Davis Wade Stadium in 2013, scoring just 10 points in regulation and committing four turnovers in a 17-10 overtime loss to the Bulldogs. But the Rebels bring the Southeastern Conference’s top offense into this year’s matchup while the unit hasn’t turned it over in the last two games.

“We’ll have to come out and play a little harder, try to jump out on them early and just keep them down for the rest of the game,” wideout Laquon Treadwell said.