WATCH: Greg Knox's Egglectric entry has Mississippi State fans roaring for the team
Mississippi State interim head coach Greg Knox made a grand entry for the Egg Bowl clash on Thursday. The Bulldogs faced their rivals, the Ole Miss Rebels, for the yearly Thanksgiving clash. And Knox gave the fans a moment to remember.
Mississippi State uploaded a video on Instagram showing the electric entry of the coach. He led his team out on the field, driving an ATV, while his players followed him in an elaborate procession. The staging happened under automaker Nissan’s pregame drive.
Here is the video of Greg Knox's grand entry into the Davis Wade Stadium.
Before the entry, Knox talked about a life lesson. The ATV entry was reportedly inspired by a story of motivational speaker Inki Johnson about his son falling off an ATV and the lesson drawn from it, shared with the team before the game
“The lesson was that when life knocks your butt down, I need you to get back up and I need you to go heavy on the thing that just knocked you,” Johnson had said about the life lesson in another event.
The entry got the fans going before the kickoff, but it could not get the team over the line. The Bulldogs ended their season with a defeat in the Egg Bowl after a hard-fought game.
The Greg Knox tenure ends with Mississippi State's loss in the Egg Bowl
If the Bulldogs had knocked the Ole Miss Rebels in the Egg Bowl, they would have become bowl-eligible, thus extending the stay of Greg Knox as the interim head coach. But they fell short after the Rebels won the contest. The Bulldogs dug in for three quarters, but their rivals showed why they got a 10-win season again this year, their second in three seasons.
Mississippi State QB Will Rogers put up decent numbers with 207 passing yards in 25 completions, but Ole Miss RB Quinshon Judkins took the game away with a 119 rushing yards game, finding the end zone once. The Rebels QB Jaxon Dart also chipped in with 96 passing yards and a touchdown. He ran a further 30 yards on foot.
Ole Miss won 17-7 to finish 10-2. Mississippi State missed out on the postseason after ending with a 5-7 record, 2-1 under Knox.