In some 72 hours, Ole Miss planted its flag in the middle of Mississippi State’s Davis-Wade Stadium after upsetting the Bulldogs in the Egg Bowl, Dan Mullen bolted for Florida without telling his players, and Ole Miss took the interim tag off Matt Luke and named the former Rebels player its 37th head coach.

Tennessee tried its best to own perhaps the wildest weekend in SEC football history by having Twitter fire Greg Shiano before he was actually really hired. But Mississippi was tough to top.

Starting with Luke …

Some think Ole Miss settled on Luke — despite its spending quadruple the average Mississippi dweller’s wage on a search firm that concluded the best of option was taking the interim tag off the former Ole Miss player.

Some Ole Miss beat writers, as well as the loudest among the fanbase, have spoken out against Luke — questioning not the man himself but his readiness for the full-time SEC stage. There were moments he looked to be in over his head this season, the last of which was a timeout call late in the first half against Mississippi State that gave the Bulldogs time to kick a field goal and cut the halftime deficit to three points.

Those same people will argue he got outcoached at times, and that’s true.

But is that enough to counter the massive groundswell from the players, who all but demanded Luke have that interim tag removed? The charge was led by the team’s best player, receiver A.J. Brown, who was quick after the Egg Bowl to start the campaign.

It’s tough to argue that anyone besides Luke, a Mississippi native and lifelong Rebel, could have directed that team to an Egg Bowl win or even maintained the fight and unity the team displayed under bad and possibly worsening circumstances. He said it himself, it is a destination job for him. It isn’t a destination job for Texas-born Chad Morris or Nebraska-born Scott Frost.

That personal motivation, plus the players who have seen more of him than any of the curmudgeon media or fans dying for a splash hire, was enough for Ole Miss to make the move.

The last Ole Miss leading man to go from line coach to head coach was Johnny Vaught, and that worked out well. For what it’s worth, some of Luke’s detractors also fussed when Ole Miss hired a high school girls’ basketball coach (Hugh Freeze) to lead the football program. They were smiling after the 2015 Sugar Bowl, though.

There may be more mixed reaction than Ole Miss thought there would be, but not from inside the locker room – and they’ll be the ones playing. They don’t see it as a settlement hire at all.

On to Mullen …

That heading should read “On from Mullen,” actually. Mississippi State fans still hadn’t gotten over the Egg Bowl loss when reports came all of a sudden on Sunday that Mullen was headed to Florida. By the time the reports surfaced, it was pretty much a done deal.

Fans had been prepared for Mullen’s departure, but less this season than of any of the previous times his name came up for other jobs. Most thought they had already survived the biggest pushes to steal their coach. He might move on after 2018, but not now with the talent coming back next season.

If he told any players, you couldn’t tell that by swiping through Twitter. Players were confused and expressed such. That eventually turned into messages of moving on and being just fine, but the initial shock was telling — this wasn’t anticipated from inside the locker room.

The university was prepared for it and knew one day it was coming, thus the quick movement to hire Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead as the next man. For MSU, it was a quick, decisive recovery from a situation made more challenging when Mullen decided to take his best assistants with him.

As prepared as the administration was to deal with this when it hit, the backlash Tennessee got from the Shiano debacle will make it that much easier for Mississippi State fans to prematurely judge the new hire. He is stepping into huge shoes.

The reaction to Mullen leaving was a mirror to the reaction of losing the Egg Bowl. Thursday night, tweets went from “We are going to kill Ole Miss” to “I knew that was going to happen anyway.”

Sunday, things went from “Our savior isn’t leaving” to “We could do much better. Oh, and thanks for what you did. See you Sept. 29 in Starkville.”

That was Mississippi’s roller coaster of an SEC weekend. You’re up, Tennessee.