It’s Egg Bowl week, and as expected, there are going to be some comments before the game that add fuel to the rivalry series between Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

Rebels sophomore running back Jerrion Ealy was considering joining his school’s greatest rival when he was a student at Jackson Prep, before he ended up going to Ole Miss instead. And on Tuesday, he was asked about what led to that decision.

“Early on, probably ninth grade to early junior, sophomore year, I was really close to committing to them,” Ealy told the media. “They were the first school to ever offer me, they offered me in seventh grade for baseball, and I loved that baseball program. It was just somewhere I really wanted to go and I spent much of my time there, because it was only like 25 minutes from my house. It was there. If you go to my house, there’s a bunch of State stuff hanging up around, we’ve got State on the door, State on the driveway. It’s just Starkville that way.

“Towards the end, I really didn’t have any aspirations for going there. There was only one school that I would go to if I was going to stay in state, and that was the University of Mississippi.”

Why not Mississippi State?

“I didn’t like their football program, and I don’t like their football program,” Ealy said.

Ealy is preparing to play in his second career Egg Bowl. Last year, he had 115 total yards and a touchdown against Mississippi State, but Ole Miss went on to lose, 21-20. And although the Rebels lead the all-time series 62-46-6, the Bulldogs have won each of the past two years.

Ealy will be looking to help end that skid in 2020. Ole Miss and Mississippi State are set to kick off at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday on SEC Network.