Ole Miss - 31, National champs - 30.... You honestly think this is cool?

"Oh my God, we just beat Florida!"

These are the words of a one Juco All-American, a rogue bloggeur with a love and knowledge of Ole Miss unlike most. At the time of this utterance, the Ole Miss Rebels had pulled off what then seemed to be the most unlikely of upsets. It was a damn, damn good feeling which proved to be the first in a long string of good feelings. This season was incredibly memorable and absolutely thrilling to watch (and subsequently blog). During the points-orgy that was the 2nd half of our season, our middle fingers flew high, bourbon flowed like the Mississippi, and every Hotty was Toddied.

Yet, now, after all of those successes, folks are still stuck on beating Florida. They want to sell you ugly t-shirts and bumper stickers and whatnot because "DAMMIT WE BEAT FLORIDA WHOOO!" You would think that after having defeated the Gators during three of our last four meetings that we'd be used to it by now (ooooh, burn) but this is still some incredible novelty to many of us. Yes, it's a memorable game, and one of the single greatest games in the history of all of Ole Miss football, but to make that the focus of our very successful 2008-9 season is pretty durned foolish.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've seen we Rebels fail to see the forest for the trees. In the original Abner's on the corner of University and South Lamar, there hangs a copy of the 1977 Notre Dame football schedule. The Irish were crowned the national champions of that season despite having one blemish on their record: a 20-13 loss to Ole Miss in Jackson. At that game, Joe Montana sat on the bench as the backup quarterback for the Irish as he watched the domers shock the country by falling to the Ole Miss Rebels.

Yet, this example is different from its modern counterpart because, for those times, such celebration of a single game was necessary. This is because the 1977 Ole Miss season was pretty forgettable otherwise. The Rebs finished that season without a bowl appearance, having lost to Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi State, LSU and *gulp* Southern Miss (the State game was later forfeited, but still).

Why do this? Do you think this hurts the feelings of Florida fans or something? Well, it doesn't. After watching the BCS title game at a bar armed to the teeth with Florida fans, an Ole Miss cohort of mine began shouting "we beat the national champions!" The Florida fans effected enough to respond generally said things along the lines of "WHOOOOOOOO FUCK YES MOTHERFUCK YEAH BCS CHAMPS MOTHERFUCKERS!"

A few of them even thanked us for "lighting a fire under their asses" and took the time to congratulate us on our win over Texas Tech.

"The SEC owns the Big XII, broseph!" Yeah, I got that and, while incredibly douchey in that uniquely Florida way, it goes to show that our win over them isn't so much a blip on their radar screen. Hell, most Florida fans are glad they lost to us early in the season as opposed to shitting the bed against someone else (Florida State, Bama) with bigger BCS implications later on.

We became a nail in Tommy Tuberville's pine box, royally embarrassed LSU in Tiger Stadium, and stunned 90-something-percent of Americans after smacking around the Texas Tech Red Raiders of the "mighty" Big XII South. Yet, all some of us seem to give a rat's ass about was beating Florida in the Swamp.

We're the shin snappin', fin slangin', Jevan Snead and Dexter McCluster havin' Cotton Bowl Champions. We're not some bullshit, vicarious National Champions. Let's quit dwelling on that game and focus on our successful season at large.

Of course, it's more than alright to have cheered for the Gators in the BCS Championship Game. The Sooners are a dastardly, bastardly group and, as a fan of an SEC school (that isn't Georgia), you're expected to pull for the Gators in such a situation. But you should pull for them for the sake of the conference as a whole; not just for the benefit of Ole Miss. Their defeat of Oklahoma marked the third consecutive year in which the crystal football was hoisted high by SEC hands which makes, not just one, but five of our victories that much more impressive. The SEC IS the best conference out there and we no longer need to waste our time trying to prove that.



P.S. - Alright, I will admit that making Tim Tebow cry still reminds me of all of the good things in life (Sex, pie, the 2nd Amendment, et cetera)

P.P.S. - Oh, and to whoever my temporary "broseph" may have been that evening: the SEC does, in fact, own the Big XII. Suck it, SEC haters.

A few links to get you through the day

First link is from a CNNSI article by Stewart Mandel that takes out some quotes from Brandon Spikes interview with the media where he calls out the Big 12, USC and gives Ole Miss a shout out.  While the quotes from Spikes are great, check out the comment section.  Maybe it is because I only read about SEC football and don't venture over to Big XII message boards, but there are seriously delusional fans on the other side of the Mississippi.  

The second one is a link from the Dan Patrick show and his interview with Houston Nutt who was on the show this morning.  Nutt talks about recruiting against Alabama, the situation at Boston College and predicts a Florida Dub tonight.  

Finally Orson Swindle's piece from EDSBS that ran yesterday-ish.  It does a great job critiquing the overrated assclown that is Rick Reilly and the whole hoopla over Utah and the BCS.

Season Recap: Photos and Haikus

Memphis, city of
I beg you, leave our fair town
Don't ever come back


Wake got the ball last
Dex threw an interception
Lewis missed the sack


We played hungover
And still won by 21
That guy's knee is fucked

Four interceptions?
Seriously, Mr. Snead!?
This one is on you


Holy fucking shit!
UF may win BCS
You're welcome, Timmy!


Lack of dicipline
Exposed our secondary
Goalline fumbles!? DEX!


Had a bad 1st half
Bama had a bad 2nd
Tweaked Mt. cody's knee


Season's turning point
Arkansas fans are crazy;
That was OPI


Jevan started slow,
Auburn's offense was limp-dicked
See ya, Tuberville!


No one saw this game
We made up a fake weblog
SQUAWK EM HAWK EM REBS!


Fuck you, LSU
That shit was way overdue
We earned ugly prize


We brought the egg home
Many happy returns, Dawgs!
Oh no! They fired CroomS!

That was a pretty kickass way to waste time at the office, if I must say so myself. If you've got any other haikus you'd like to share please do. Oh, and to whoever took these photos, shoot us an email so we can give you due credit (omg plz plz let us use them kthxbai).

EDIT: The photo of Billy Tapp juking some guy is pretty damned badass. That's definitely the highlight of his *ahem* illustrious football career at Ole Miss. Thank you for everything, Billy.

South Carolina Questions

The folks at Garnet and Black Attack sent us a few questions to answer about Ole Miss. They'll have our responses up soon. We responded with some questions for them to answer. Here are their responses.

1. Talk a little bit about the play of Jared Cook. We've got his brother as a starting fullback and think the world of him. Jared's numbers aren't bad for a TE no one was talking about before the season started. What has been the difference in his play so far?

Well, we've always known that Jared is capable of a lot. He's a big guy who can run and has soft hands. He had over 400 yards receiving last year, which isn't bad for a TE, especially considering that Kenny McKinley was the go-to guy all of last season.

The spike in his numbers this year is partially to McKinley's injury. When Kenny went down, Jared become our best option and, because we still haven't found a wideout we can count on like Kenny, Jared remains a go-to guy.

2. How is it that Steve Spurrier can't seem to get a decent offense together? Are there injuries we don't know about? Give us your reasoning for your offensive woes.

Well, I can tell you that you're not the only one who's surprised that Spurrier can't get the offense together. We certainly weren't expecting for the Gamecocks to be known for good defenses and putrid offenses under Spurrier.

The only significant injury is to Kenny McKinley, our star wideout. Not having Kenny hurts us, as we've been unable to find an equally competent go-to receiver and our vertical game is suffering for it.

However, we we also have other, more serious problems. You can have all the wide receivers in the world and it won't do you any good if you can't get them the ball. I'd say our problems are two-fold. First of all, we don't have a running game. The blame, I think, lies with our line, which does OK pass blocking but can't open up a hole for a tailback to save their lives. Our tailbacks are decent but none of them are good enough to make things happen without good blocking. Because we don't have a running game, opposing defenses have chosen to sit back and play the pass, limiting our options down field. Spurrier is known for his passing attack, but his offense requires some proficiency on the ground to keep defenses honest.

Our other problem, of course, has been the QB situation. Tommy Beecher was an unmitigated disaster. With all due respect to Tommy, who I wish all the best, I'm still scratching my head as to why he started against NC State. Chris Smelley is a little better and has his moments, but he doesn't have a great arm and tends to make ill-advised decisions when no one is open. We're now going with Stephen Garcia, who I'm sure you've heard of. Garcia brings some definite advantages: he has a big arm, and he can also scramble when the pocket breaks down, which should help us against Ole Miss if your defense wins the battle in the trenches. The problem with Garcia is that he's young and doesn't know much of the play book, so we're kind of limited as to what we can do with him in there. That said, I'm hoping he can at least take our offense to a slightly higher level.

3. Who is the best player on your team that no one is talking about? What's so good about him?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Chris Culliver. Chris is a sophomore safety and has played well on defense, although he's still developing in that area.

Chris also returns kickoffs for us, and this is where I think he could really affect the outcome of the game on Saturday. He's had some solid returns so far this year and I'm just waiting for him to take one to the house. I told Kyle at Dawg Sports the same thing before we played Georgia, and Chris held up his end of the bargain by having a few solid returns that gave us good field position. Unfortunately, our offense didn't do much to capitalize.

4. What has been Ellis Johnson's impact in coaching your defense? We're glad he's gone from Mississippi State. We're waiting for the floodgates to open on y'all like they did last season after your uncanny defensive play for the first half of the season.

Speaking of Mississippi State, we played them the past two years and I wish we could play them again this year instead of you guys. Maybe they could cure our offense.

The main improvement we've seen under Coach Johnson is our better run defense. Johnson seems to have instilled better tackling fundamentals in our guys. Johnson also installed a 4-2-5 scheme to combat the growing number of spread offenses in the SEC. The virtue of this scheme is that the extra safety provides backup in run support. Hopefully this element will cure what ailed us last year against Houston Nutt's Hogs. At the same time, a larger defensive backfield gives us a solid pass defense. It also allows us to use CB blitzes from time to time, as the extra safety can pick up the receiver the blitzing CB leaves open. We've had some success with this play so far.

The formation does have some weaknesses, though. Having one less LB makes us a little vulnerable for medium gains on the edges. I expect Snead and McCluster to try to hurt us in this way.

The drop in our defense's effectiveness late last year had more to do with injuries than anything else. We have a handful of solid NFL prospects on our first string, but a lot of those guys got hurt last year. So far this year we've been lucky in regards to injuries, and we'll have to remain so to succeed, because as we learned last year, we don't have a lot of depth.

5. What is your prediction on the outcome of the game on Saturday? How do you think it will go down?

I don't really want to make a prediction because I don't want to jinx us and at the same time don't like to pick against us. I expect it will be a tight game that's decided by turnovers. Both of these teams are capable of playing at a high level when they're not making mistakes, but both have proven themselves capable of shooting themselves in the foot from time to time. Moreover, while I think you guys have an explosive offense, I think we're capable of shutting you down if we continue to play like we've been playing. That means that the only way you're going to score a lot of points is if you manage to force a few turnovers and get the short field.
At the same time, our offensive line is going to have to play a lot better to keep your defensive front out of our backfield.

P.S.We got a field pass for South Carolina. Share in our jubilation.

His Truth Is Marching On

Most have you have probably seen this video already, but for those of you who have not here is the best highlight video of our win over the Gators. It is one of those rare videos that does not subject you to the musical "talents" of Nickelback or Welcome to the Jungle. Enjoy.