(Spruce Derden, USA TODAY Sports)

The most treasured piece of hardware in Mississippi is a golden egg.

That’s because every November, Mississippi State and Ole Miss play for a giant, shiny, golden egg mounted on top of a pedestal.

Rewind for a minute. There are a lot of intimidating-sounding rivalry games in college football like the Iron Bowl, the Civil War and the Bedlam Series. The Egg Bowl doesn’t fall into that category.

Though the historic matchup carries a significant amount of hatred, and this year the stakes are the highest they’ve ever been (mainly for the No. 4 Bulldogs), the name of the rivalry is peculiar.

(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

So where did the “Egg Bowl” come from? This game used to be called the Battle for the Golden Egg, but in 1978, the Clarion-Ledger executive sports editor Tom Patterson changed it.

According to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, Patterson didn’t think the state’s football programs were good enough for his newspaper. He was proud of his sports sections and wanted to show them off by covering special events. But the Bulldogs and Rebels weren’t going to any bowl games.

So he thought why not create one? It was then that the Battle for the Golden Egg, which is supposed to resemble a gold-plated football, became the Egg Bowl and that’s how the newspaper referred to it the whole week. Patterson’s special Egg Bowl section ended up winning a first place award.

Obviously, the game between the rivals is still called the Egg Bowl more than 30 years later.