There was Dan Mullen, his maroon Mississippi State jacket drenched in Egg Bowl victory sweat and an unlit cigar in his right hand. He stood in the underbelly of Ole Miss' Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, arrogance radiating after last year's 55-20 beatdown of bitter rival Ole Miss in Oxford.
Near the end of an almost 20-minute postgame news conference, his pride exploded when a reporter asked whom the Bulldogs had to beat to get rising star quarterback Nick Fitzgerald, who had just embarrassed Ole Miss' defense for 367 total yards and five touchdowns, with 258 of those yards and two scores coming on the ground.