Casagrande: The iron shell eggshell adds purity to the rivalry

This is an opinion column.

This Iron Bowl week feels different because of what it is.

Not diminished, just different.

For what felt like a generation, there were additional missions here virtually every Thanksgiving week. Whether it was deciding the SEC West title or the knockout round for a team’s chance to play in Atlanta or beyond, the Iron Bowl almost always had a multiplier.

Some extra juice.

Perhaps some hope could be gleaned from Alabama’s now diminished chances of reaching the top 12 12-team College Football Playoff, but that’s pretty far-fetched.

Oklahoma blew that last week. That result was more impressive than the score itself for the 24-3 final score, but it set the stage for something old that is now something new.

An eggshell made from an iron shell.

You know what I mean, and no disrespect to our neighbors to the west, but they do it too.

Rarely does a Thanksgiving or holiday meeting between Mississippi and Mississippi State have any real conference or national impact. The Bulldogs have made just one appearance in the SEC Championship, back in 1998. Their rivals have never been there, and that streak continues in this new era.

This just makes the eggshell even more important for all the old fashioned reasons.

One could argue that the hatred on the field and in the stands every year in Starkville or Oxford exceeds anything we see in Tuscaloosa or Auburn.

You don’t play with an eye on next week.

There is a singular focus on wreaking havoc on their neighbors without regard to anything else.

That’s essentially what will be the case this Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium as the focus shifts from the national level to a more local level. Not that some of these high stakes games didn’t work. Just look back at last year or 2013. These are Iron Bowls that will live on forever, but in part because they impacted national title runs that were either started, ended or extended.