This is your 3-2-1, a content item that appears weekly during the football seeason. While it will almost always be football focused, other topics may be included as needed.

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1 - Ole Miss has to tackle in the open field

Mike Leach’s air raid offense doesn’t include many surprises, and quarterback Will Rogers has become proficient in delivering the football where Leach intends for it to go.

That creates an Egg Bowl that’s all about execution when the Rebels and Bulldogs meet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Starkville. Rogers is going to eat up the middle of the field, and Ole Miss’ defensive success will depend on tackling and getting pressure up the middle.

PFF College has Rogers with 549 pass attempts this season, and 382 of those have been in the middle of the field compared to 59 on the left side and 108 on the right side. And 383 of his passes have been fewer than 10 yards in the air.

The Bulldogs use passes at or behind the line of scrimmage as a run substitute. There have been 213 passes from Rogers at or behind the line of scrimmage — the most in the nation.

Rogers is first nationally in yards and completions, but he’s 106th out of 124 qualifying quarterbacks in yards per attempt. And if Ole Miss can disrupt lanes or get pressure, Rogers falls to 4.88 yards per attempt facing any disruption.

2 - Ole Miss coaches have struggled the first time in Starkville

Lane Kiffin mentioned his friendship with Mississippi State head coach Leach on Monday, as the two have done their parts to settle down the flames of what has long been a fiery (toxic?) rivalry.

"You know, I don't think I knew about the toxicity as you referred to it,” Kiffin said. “I've heard about it here or there but, someone said it the other day that it doesn't really make sense to me or Leach now that we get along. Maybe we were brought here to bring us all together.”

While they have been friendly for a long time, Scott Field won’t be a friendly place for the Rebels on Thursday night. Between the noise with the cowbells and the energy of a full house of Bulldogs, it’s a different environment when the Rebels are on the visitor sideline.

Of Ole Miss coaches this century, Matt Luke is the only one to win his first game in Starkville as the Rebel head coach. Luke beat the Bulldogs 31-28. David Cutcliffe (23-20, 1999), Ed Oregon (35-14, 2005), Houston Nutt (41-27, 2009) and Hugh Freeze (17-10, 2013) all lost their first road Egg Bowls.

Nutt was the textbook one who struggled to believe it was different as the Ole Miss coach until it happened. While at Arkansas, Nutt beat MSU every season after his first one and dominated the Bulldogs, 45-0, in Oxford in 2008. But a year later, MSU ran all over Ole Miss to deny the Rebels of a Citrus Bowl berth.

While Kiffin hasn’t been to Starkville as Ole Miss head coach, Corral and some other players are well versed with the chaos in the Golden Triangle. Acknowledging the need for extra focus is just part of the challenge in this rivalry for the Rebels.

3 - Ole Miss can narrow its bowl destination with a win

Ole Miss knows its going to a New Year’s Six game if it beats Mississippi State.

The Rebels, who are currently No. 9 in the College Football Playoff rankings, would lock up mostly likely either the Sugar Bowl or Peach Bowl with a win on Thursday.

It would be the Sugar if Ole Miss is the highest-ranked SEC team not in the playoff or probably the Peach if Alabama doesn’t make the playoff and stays ranked ahead of the Rebels.

Should Mississippi State win, Ole Miss would likely have a floor of the Citrus Bowl and would need to rankings watch to see if it could still find a way into a New Year's Six game, which would likely require LSU to beat Texas A&M.

The Aggies are currently No. 15, and it’s possible they would jump over Ole Miss with a Rebel loss, putting both teams at three defeats, though the Rebels didn’t win head to head.

Arkansas is the only other SEC team ranked, and it’s unlikely the Razorbacks could factor into this bowl tier.

With a win, Ole Miss also gets to 10 regular-season wins for the first time in school history.

1 - Will this be a relatively defensive game

For all the talk about the offenses, is this game set to be a relatively low-scoring defensive affair?

The Rebels have relied on their defense to do the majority of the work in recent weeks, holding opponents in their last three wins under 20 points.

The over/under total for the Egg Bowl is 64 points, and the under has hit in Ole Miss’ last six games. The last five Ole Miss-MSU games have also gone under in Starkville.

There’s a 60 percent chance of rain at kickoff on Thursday, though the precipitation chance dwindles significantly shortly after that.

For the game to go over and break that streak, the Rebels likely have to get better in the second half offensively.

The Rebels have scored 20 total offensive points in the last nine second-half quarters and two touchdowns — the 15-yard drive against A&M and a drive against Vanderbilt that made it 31-9 to ice the Commodores.

Ole Miss scored three points against Liberty and Auburn each and the Rebels didn’t score in the fourth quarter against LSU.

If history is any indicator at all, the Rebels will need some late points to pull this one out.

2 - Are we set for another nail-biter in Starkville?

The games in Starkville recently have required antacid for both sides.

In the last four matchups at Mississippi State, the scoring margin at the end of regulation is slightly fewer than four points between winner and loser. Compare that to a 21-point scoring margin during that same timeframe when the game is in Oxford.

Since 2013, the game has gone to overtime, Ole Miss has a win by 11 and a win by three, and the Bulldogs won by a single point in 2019 on the missed extra point that sent shockwaves around college football.

There hasn’t been a win by two touchdowns or more in Starkville since the Bulldogs beat Houston Nutt’s hapless 2011 team, 35-3.

Four of the last five games in Oxford have had wins by 14 or more points, with each team winning two of those.

Corral has been quite careful the last three weeks with running the football, as Ole Miss has limited the designed runs, and Corral has not been as physical because of the ankle injury that worsened against Auburn.

He scrambled for 37 yards against Vanderbilt and 23 against Liberty, but none of those runs were planned pre-snap. Against Texas A&M, Corral did have some designed runs, but his rushing total for the day was minus-five yards.

If Ole Miss’ offense is going to get back to the level of earlier in the season, Corral has to use his feet whenever the opportunity presents itself — and I expect that to happen. I also don't expect him to slide as much.

With the regular season over with the Egg Bowl and Corral saying he should be close to or at 100 percent, his feet are perhaps ready to be their early-season selves.

Corral ran 30 times against Tennessee for 212 yards, but he was effective in every win this season prior to the injury. He rushed for 94 yards against Arkansas, 89 against Tulane and 66 against Louisville.

Corral has 348 yards on designed runs this season and 313 on scrambles. Both need to be utilized against the Bulldogs, especially in the red zone, as Ole Miss has bogged down in that part of the field.