Oversigning a Disaster?

There are plenty of people who cover college football who routinely know what they're talking about.

Paul Finebaum is not one of them.

Yeah, cool, he hosts a pretty damned entertaining radio show and is the king of breaking controversial news and starting virulent yet passionate debate among the varied SEC fanbases. But, beyond the role of "facilitator," Paul Finebaum leaves much to be desired and is often the victim of his own ignorance. For example, take this his opinion of our signing class which he uttered on his signing day radio show:

"Houston (Nutt) shredded the academic integrity of the SEC (ED: What "academic integrity?") and of Ole Miss by signing anyone and everyone who could spell their own name, knowing good and well that most would not qualify!"

Most? Really? I don't mean to get caught up in nitpicky semantics or anything here, but "most" of our class would be nineteen. NINE. TEEN. No, Paul, "most" of our class will be in Oxford this fall sporting pads and an Ole Miss jersey. Yes we're helping out our State's absurd JUCO network and going to hopefully continue to foster our fruitful relationship with Hargrave with some non-qualifiers and sign-and-places but, for the most part, this class is nowhere close to the unmitigated disaster that you and many other people are portraying it as.

But, don't take my word for it. Nope, I think the internet's most analytical college football blogger, Dr. Saturday, will do the trick just fine.

Click here for his piece on signing day's largest classes and how they measure up to each school's available roster space. Take special note of the following snippet:

These numbers are always murky enough that they fall into the category of "best guess," but Alabama, North Carolina, Auburn and UCLA -- and probably some other schools that weren't part of the very small group I delved into -- are all far enough over the line here that, if the season started today, I'm confident they'd have to straight up cut some kids with whom they had a mutual commitment.

But the season doesn't start today, of course, and as Butch Davis knows from experience, natural attrition over the next six months will render the "oversigning" debate absolutely uncontroversial. I'm trying very hard not to call anyone a snake-oil salesman -- as Hazel writes to me: "None of the players signed will ever be told that they don’t fit. Everything is carefully organized to make sure we remain within NCAA rules." I think that's true. Rebel fans I know have a detailed, player-by-player account of how Ole Miss' latest class is going to work itself out, which will probably turn out to be pretty close to reality.

All of this coming from a Southern Miss fan. He's no Rebel or even BCS homer.

As you can see, of the many BCS teams who oversigned this year, we return the fewest players outside of Mississippi State. We needed to oversign more than most. Hell, Alabama is going to need to make room for 10 players which is only one player fewer than will need to make room for. Once again, Dr. Saturday does his research, crunches the numbers, and presents the method to the madness as he best sees it.

But, of course, that's not the style of the Paul Finebaums of the world. Finebaum delivers the kind of "shoot from the hip now and ask questions, ummm, never" style of journalism that the unwashed masses of sidewalk SEC fans just gobble up. He spends most of his mornings writing columns which don't need a title more complex than "Lane Kiffen is a dick" and most of his afternoons fielding calls from people whose opinions aren't much more complex than "Lane Kiffen is a dick."*

But yeah, Paul, fuck "math" and "analysis" and "reasoning." Houston Nutt and staff are clueless and managed to ignorantly and obliviously stumble into this horrible plight like the kids who found Jumanji.

"Oh my God we just wanted to play and we thought it'd be fun and now there are elephants and monkeys and bald Alabamans all running around and screaming and OH DEAR GOD WE OVERFUCKINGSIGNED FUUUUUUCCCKKKKKK!"

To suggest that we dropped scholarships like propaganda leaflets out of the backs of bombers throughout the Southeast is asinine. People oversign. Sure, nobody really ever oversigns to the extent that we did and everyone from the fans to the coaches had to be somewhat surprised by this outcome but, all things considered, this was a very unusual recruiting situation for we Rebels.

How often does an Army All-American like Craig Drummond just fall into your lap a few weeks before signing day?

How often do you expect a guy like Tim Simon or Joel Kight to commit elsewhere and, as your backup plan, bring in a guy like Willie Ferrell or Mike Marry, only to have all of them commit to you? To boot, all of this happens right after D.T. Shackleford ups and leaves Tennessee on what seems like a whim.

How often is your #1 QB prospect pigeonholed into walking-on because he's got a 'tude and Auburn let a taller, faster one slip out of their hands?

At the beginning of the year, recruits wanted nothing to do with us. We were the SEC's laughing stock. After going from that to the conference's 2nd fiddle media darling (behind Tim Tebow, naturally) in less than one calendar year, a lot of kids actually wanted something to do with us and, yes, the new found attention made this more difficult than it had to be.

What I see as having happened is this: we went after a few guys as "contingency plans." Our #1 targets at certain positions (*cough* Patterson *cough*) were wavering, giving conflicting reports, and confusing the hell out of everybody involved. In order not to sacrifice the overall depth of the team, we offered several scholarships to players at various positions as to avoid undersigning. I'm sure we anticipated a few of these #1 targets to commit to us on signing day, but not all of them but one. Furthermore, instability caused by recent coaching changes at several SEC schools moved several commitments around and we seemed to be the "plan B" for a lot of prospects.

Did the coaches plan to oversign? Of course they did. Hurricane Orgeron's attrition rate was JUCO worthy. Did they mean to oversign by this much? Certainly not, but it's all alright though, people. Yes, it's odd and yes, it's comical, but if having too many kids really itching to join our football team is the biggest problem we're having right now, then the Rebels are in excellent shape. Our coaches know what they're doing.



*At least he deserves credit for knowing his audience.

Bobbie Massie Spurns Alabama, Incites Riots...

...and likely subsequently gave very little of a fuck about it. You can't scare Bobbie Massie.



HT: RidgeReb of NAFOOM

I Just Had To

The Price is Wrong, bitch.

Lookin' for some Ole Miss Recruiting News?

You could try your usual sources of Yancy, Neal, or Chase/Ty, but why not try something new? Yes, now you can get your recruiting news from Cletus, Jedidiah, or even Stupid McJackass.

Those are three completely different Razorback message boards containing multiple threads about the Ole Miss program. These threads were not hard to find as all of them were literally on each website's respective first page of listed threads. These postsers are especially focused on our recruiting and recruiting rankings because, if you can't beat 'em on the field, you might as well try to "beat" 'em on the first Wednesday in February.

It seems that the Arkansas Razorbacks have begun to pay more attention to the Ole Miss football program than most Ole Miss fans. When you consider the facts that

A) Most Ole Miss fans really don't follow the program at all
B) Moonshine makes folks angry, bitter, and agressive
C) Methamphetamines cause days-long stints of insomnia

it really isn't too terribly surprising. Ole Miss fans are far too carefree while Arkansas fans are far too obsessive. One group of fans fancy this as some kind of social event, the other equates it to a bloodsport.

The only thing these two groups have in common is that both of them are trying to prove a point. The Arkansas fans are (maybe) trying to prove to everyone outside of NWA that they're not the ones being stupid and that Houston Nutt really is as awful as they say. We Rebels are still trying to prove to everyone in NWA that we don't give a shit about their opinions.

Nope. Not even one shit. Hell, we don't even give a half of a shit.

I guess my biggest beef with all of these message board users is that they're all so self-congratulatory. They're mostly comprised of a bunch of people who are bored at work and, as haters of their own lives, would simply like someone to validate their opinions every half-hour or so.

Talk around the "water cooler" in Little Rock

Will this EVER end?

The Grades are in: SEC East

The grades for the West can be found here.

Florida: A+

You're welcome, Timmy. VICARIOUS NATIONAL CHAMPS, MAWFUKKAZ!

Florida earns a well deserved "A+" because... well, really, I shouldn't need to explain further. They won the BCS Championship, dammit. The SEC owns all of you.

Vanderbilt: A-- (Yes, that's "A minus minus")

If this were anybody but Vanderbilt, they'd have gotten a low "C" or a high "D." Starting 5-0 and earning a #13 ranking, only to lose to Mississippi State and begin a slide into 6-6 is, by the standards of folks who have been to bowl games over the last two decades, pretty bad. But, it's Vanderbilt and they just won a bowl game against a BCS team. My dad was four years old the last time that happened.

But, Ghost, there wasn't a BCS back then.

Shut the hell up. Don't you think I know that?

Anyway, here's something neato on which to chew: Boston College had the longest bowl victory streak in America until the 'Dores showed up. On your victories over ranked teams and bowl championship, congrats Vanderbilt. As for next year, well, I don't really have any clue what's going to happen then. Google up a Vandy blog or something.

Georgia: B-

Matt Stafford is showing you the number two, as in how many more games the Bulldogs should have won. The curse of the preseason AP #1 lives on. Losing to Florida is understandable. Perhaps not by that margin, but still, they're good. Losing to Georgia Tech and Alabama shouldn't be. Alabama shouldn't have been able to score so many points in the first half while simple, fundamental tackling would have kept the Yellowjackets out of the endzone on a few of those long touchdown runs.

Their offensive line was young and their defense was overrated. Knowshon Moreno and Matthew Stafford are legitimate, first-round NFL prospects but it takes more than that to create the national championship caliber team we were all led to believe the Bulldogs were going to be.

Without Stafford and Moreno, their offense should have some trouble getting into a groove next season. As the season progresses, so should the Bulldogs but I cannot imagine them winning more than 10 games in 2009-10 with the Oklahoma State, Arizona State, LSU, and Arkansas on their schedule.

Kentucky: C-

Kentucky jumped quickly out of the gate but faded in the stretch (get it... horse jokes? nobody?). Before everyone realized how awful Louisville actually was, I was very impressed with Kentucky's opening performance. However, after having only won two SEC games by a grand total of two points, it became apparent that Kentucky simply wasn't that strong of a squad.

Their bowl win did impress many, though. To rally from behind by using solid, solid defense takes talent and, get this, good coaching. Kentucky won their third bowl game in a row which, three years ago, would have been a laughable statement.

Hartline needs to step it up and Kentucky needs to amplify their offense significantly in order to improve for 2009. They were very good defensively, but simply couldn't find the endzone as often as they should have.

South Carolina: D+

Stephen Garcia looks bummed that String Cheese Incident cancelled their recent Columbia show. Anyway, South Carolina did what South Carolina does: wiped their collective ass on their expectations. Their season began in similar fashion to Ole Miss' with a good mix of wins and losses but, after week 3 or 4, the Gamecocks went on a tear winning 6 of 7. Sitting on a 7-3 record, the 'Cocks looked like a legitimate dark horse in the SEC East (as much of one as you can be when the BCS champs are involved, that is). Unfortunately, Steve Spurrier must have misplaced his refrigerator magnet schedule thingy because the Gamecocks didn't even show up to their three final games, losing all three by a combined score of 118-30. Were they, for the most of the season, a better team than Kentucky? Absolutely, but their season's end was putrid enough to sink them below the Wildcats.

If South Carolina's quarterback situation can be remedied, even in the slightest, they should see marked improvement for next season.

Tennessee: F

I mean, who in the hell loses to Wyoming?

*Man in suit leans over to a strident Ghost of Jay Cutler. Covering his earpiece with his fingertip, he hurriedly whispers into Ghost's ear.*

pssha-pssa-tapssshss-tapsshshst

Uh huh?

apssshhha-pssh-psshht

Oh, I see... Ahem, while losses to such storied programs as the Wyoming Cowboys and the UCLA Bruins should be expected with such a murder's row of an OOC schedule, Tennessee should not have struggled as they did against their SEC foes. Losses to Auburn and South Carolina could have been avoided had the Vols played as they did against the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Wildcats of Kentucky. Their play on the field was rarely good, primarily inconsistent, and oftentimes just plain bad.

The Lane Kiffin hire is interesting in that he is bringing in proven coaches and/or coordinators to hopefully pick up where he leaves off. Tennessee is too talented to win a mere 5 games next season but, if the "talent" wearing the headsets can't get it together quickly, the Volunteers could have another forgettable season.

What's that? Huh? I mean, it's just... well...

... I'm sorry, I can't hear you over how awesome we are!

Sure there are plenty of applicable chants.

"SEC! SEC! SEC!"
"Ok-la-hoooo-maaaa! Ov-er-ra-ted"*
"Choooooooooooook-lahoma where the wins go to the other team!"**

But, those chants are all a bit overdone. Here, at the Cup, we've come up with this new chant which applicably describes the Oklahoma Sooners as of late.

Ooooook-la-ho-ma is a respectable football program. They've been able to produce some of the NFL's hottest talents and Bob Stoops is surely a capable coach. However, with their recent postseason shortcomings, one must wonder as to how vialbe the claims surrounding not only Oklahoma, but the Big XII at large, truly are. Certainly, excellent collegiate quarterbacks have made Norman their home but where do their true talents lie? Likely not at quarterback as their NFL careers are short and forgettable. But, I digress. Perhaps their conference, the Big XII, has been continuously overestimated by the likes of the national media due totheir poor defensive performances (and subsequently high offensive performances) and "squeaky-clean" coach and player behavior. Unfortunately, with the system of determinging national championships being the way it is, one can no longer reasonably expect the Oklahoma Sooners to be capable of sustainable national success as they are not geographically biased towards overly athletic playes who, even after claiming to play at 90%, still pwn n3wbz.

The SEC is better than you. Get. Over. It.
Drunk and happy. You?


*Tune of "Boomer Sooner"
**Tune of "Oklahoma," the Broadway show tune

While watching the game with some friends tonight one of them made this brilliant observation. See if you agree.

Sam Bradford:

Chaka:

Agree, disagree?

SEC West Grades

The grades are in. All over the SEC blogosphere, our seasons are being commented on and criticized and it's about time for the Red [REDACTED] Cup to jump in. The SEC West is today and the SEC East will come sometime after the BCS Championship Game.

Alabama: A

Nobody expected Alabama to go 12-0. Nobody. You Tiders all clamored on and on about how "Bama was BACK" and "motherfucking roll motherfucking TAHD" but we didn't listen.

"John Parker Wilson is still your quarterback, remember?"

"You really think a freshman wide receiver makes that much of a difference?"

"Haven't you been 'back' every preseason for the last few years now?"

Well, kudos, Bama fans. While a roster made up of mostly paraplegics and small children would have garnered a 12-0 prediction from a slew of your faithful, you've still earned your due credit. The lack of a plus to accompany your "A" is obviously due to your losses in the SEC Championship Game and Sugar Bowl. Thanks for pouring more gasoline on the already trite "OMFG teh BCS suxx" fire and giving people reason to badmouth the SEC, jackasses.

Next season should see some dropoff for the Tide as they lose two All-American offensive linemen and their three-year starter at quarterback. However, despite these losses, Alabama will be favored by many to win the West once more.

Ole Miss: A-

Obviously, I'm a homer. Pointing that out in the comments would be akin to letting everyone here know that the sun will rise over the eastern horizon tomorrow morning. Save us all the time.

Ok, now, on with the explanation: based primarily on preseason expectations and how well they stack up against the season's actual results, it's hard to give Ole Miss a lower grade. While the losses to Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, and South Carolina still make my head asplode, the six-straight victories to end the season (with each victory literally being more impressive than the previous) made it clear to everyone that this Rebel season was a work in progress. The Rebels who won the Cotton Bowl would certainly defeat Wake Forest, Vandy, and South Carolina on any field, neutral or not. They'd hang tough with Alabama and, as ironic as it may be, more than likely lose to Florida.

Remember? Tebow, tears, "won't lose again," etc? Ole Miss is the reason the SEC will take home it's third BCS title in a row.

This is a good Ole Miss team. Hopefully the success to end this season can be used as momentum into the upcoming season. Double-digit regular season wins should be attainable for the 2009 Rebel squad.

LSU: C+

The Tigers should not have lost five games. While a close loss to Bama is respectable, being on the receiving end of a Georgia Bulldog blowout isn't. Jarrett Lee proved to be one of the conferences most successful touchdown passers but, unfortunately, he wasn't very discriminatory as to whose team was scoring the touchdown. Jordan Jefferson looked much better towards the end of the season and the mudhole-stomping defeat of Georgia Tech in the Peach (Chik-Fil-A, I love you, but don't mess with our bowls) Bowl should give LSU hope for a win or two more next season. Also, former Volunteer John Chavis should have LSU's relatively weak 2008 defense in much better shape for 2009.

Arkansas: C-

When the season began, everybody was pretty sure that you were going to suck. Thank you for not disappointing.

Arkansas' season was, in many ways, akin to Ole Miss'. They started poorly, nearly losing to directional-Illindianachigan or something like that and ULM but finished on a somewhat strong note by defeating LSU on a neutral site. Over the course of the season, Arkansas' offense became one of the SEC's best, with Casey Dick putting up respectable numbers and Michael Smith earning ALL-Sec honors at tailback.

But why a "C?" Well, as I said before, nobody expected much out of the Hogs this season and, if Ryan Mallett can be the quarterback the Fayetteville wacky-asses Faithful hope for Arkansas should be much improved next season.

Mississippi State: F+

Thank God for this season. I was getting incredibly fed up with folks in Starkville talking about how "Nutt'n good happens in Oxford" and how Croom was somehow going to win them an SEC title.

We at the Cup have been saying for quite a while that Sly Croom wasn't much of a coach and, finally, the world realized the clarity of our truth. His Gulf Coast offense continued to put up paltry numbers and his defense failed to force turnovers.

Their F gets a plus because they did beat a top-25 team in Vanderbilt, knocking them off of their wacky hotstreak, and earned a much less impressive win over Arkansas. The jury is still out on Dan Mullen as far as gameday coaching is concerned, but he's done a fair job keeping most of the talent Croom had recruited for this upcoming class.

Auburn: If the analogy lent to the use of letters past F, one of them would apply here

Hiring Tony Franklin, only to have him fired before the season's end because Kodi Burns isn't all he's been cracked up to be, really set the stage for the debacle of Auburn's head coaching search. Tommy Tuberville has been disliked by the GOB's in charge on the Plains for quite some time now (remember that whole Bobby Petrino fiasco a few years ago?) and, once both parties were equally fed up with one another, they finally were able to part ways.

Both of these coaching situations made it apparent to coaches across America that if you can't deliver on exorbitantly outrageous goals set forth by a group of bitter, old white guys you won't last long at Auburn, nor will you enjoy your time there. If that weren't the case, they would have hired someone just a hair better than the worst coach in the Big XII.

Hey, at least Arkansas fans have convinced themselves that you're going to soon be badass! Granted, it really has nothing to do with your players, school, or coaches outside of Gus Malzhan but, in times like these, you'll take what you can get.

Auburn could win anywhere from 4 to 8 games next season for two reasons: they're Auburn, and they're Auburn. The situation there is so messy that it's incredibly difficult to prognosticate but they've got the talent on both sides of the ball to make some things happen.

The Big XII: Exposed?

Last night's Fiesta Bowl was indicative of many things.

Ohio State's senior class still doesn't know how to win a BCS Bowl game. Terrelle Pryor should be a future star while Colt McCoy may have maxed out his potential. And, obviously, the Big XII is simply not as good as we've been led to believe.

You all heard it at the Cotton Bowl. You could even hear it through the TV.

O-ver-rat-ed! *clap* *clap* *clap-clap-clap*

True. Tech was very much overrated. Some may nitpickily disagree with that assessment, saying that such a sentiment downplays our victory but they were, by the very virtue of their #7 ranking and the definition of the word, certainly overrated. They were rated higher than they should have been.

As were Mizzou, Texas, and Oklahoma State. While Northwestern, Ohio State, and Oregon are all good opponents, none are exceedingly great opponents (Oregon's pretty close, though). This is noteworthy because, for the duration of the regular season, we were told that the aforementioned Big XII teams were exceedingly great.

Let's not kid ourselves here; Ohio State sucks. The Big Ten sucks. The Big Ten reeled off an impressive single victory this bowl season. When we learned that the Rose and Fiesta bowls were going to pit USC and Texas against Penn State and Ohio State respectively, we all thought "well, damn, those bowls are going to be lopsided."

Well, USC held up their end of the bargain. Who would have imagined that Texas would have ended the first half trailing to the Buckeyes 6-3? Likely a few assholes from Ohio and that's it. Furthermore, the same assholes would have also predicted Ohio State to actually control a lead over the Longhorns late into the 4th quarter! If the Longhorns were who we thought they were, they wouldn't have required 4th quarter heroics to defeat the Buckeyes. If the Mizzou Tigers were who we thought they were, they wouldn't have gone into overtime against Northwestern. If the Texas Tech Red Raiders were who we thought they were, Michael Crabtree wouldn't have been limited to 30 receiving yards against an undersized Rebel secondary.

"But, but, the Big XII has such great quarterbacks!"

Does it? While sitting here "at work," I jotted down the 32 NFL teams and the conferences from which their #1 quarterback hails.* Would you like to guess how many of them hail from the Big XII? C'mon. Give it a shot.

Yep... one. And his team is playing pretty stellar football without him. The other Big XII quarterback of note is Seattle's Seneca Wallace who is only starting as the replacement to an injured Matt Hasslebeck.

Of the current starting quarterbacks in the Big XII, only Sam Bradford is truly a convincing NFL prospect. The others are too small (Chase Daniel, Todd Reesing), fold under pressure (Graham Harrell), or play in gimmicky offenses (all of them). Matthew Stafford and Jevan Snead both have better pro potential than Colt McCoy, Chase Daniel, and Graham Harrell. Certainly, these quarterbacks are great college quarterbacks but, when we SEC fans see the Mannings, Jay Cutler, Jamarcus Russell**, Jason Campbell, et al every Sunday we get just a bit peeved with the media's love for Big XII quarterbacks.

Jason White won the Heisman over ME?!

With regards to "ratings," we Rebels were, and likely will continue to be, underrated. A poor start to the season will do that to any team because, while we had one of the nations strongest finishes, rankings systems operate based on a team's season-long body of work. We're certainly playing like a top-10 team and, no matter what our final ranking may be, I'll continue to think of this team as such.

Oklahoma, may Tebow have mercy on your foreskin soul.



*I'm not perfect at this so I may have made a mistake. If so, I'm sure I'll get a dozen comments or so about it.

**He sucks balls. I know.

More salt, more wounds

I'm bored, alright?

Salt in the wounds

The Sourest of Grapes

Outside of our bowl matchups and the home-and-home series in 2002 and 3, I've had no real ill will towards Texas Tech. I've always thought Mike Leach to be an innovative offensive coach and I think the Big XII is the only conference which truly rivals the SEC in football tradition and fan fervor.

Hell, I even have family who graduated from Tech and no, I'm not just making that up.

However, despite my otherwise neutral feelings towards Texas Tech, these last few weeks have found me a little more than annoyed with the Red Raider fanbase. I had always heard from friends of mine who are fans of Texas or Texas A&M that Tech fans were "classless clowns."

Nah. I didn't believe it. There are age-old rivalries involved there and all kinds of blind prejudice is likely to result. I figured that folks outside of the SEC wouldn't listen (or really care for) whatever we spew about State, LSU, and the other usual suspects so why should I put much into what they had to say?

Next time, I'll pay more attention.

Just visit any Texas Tech forum. If you'll look back a few weeks you'll see all of the anti-Ole Miss trash. You'll even see it on several Ole Miss sites. Now, just look over the last two days. You'll see some Rebel fans returning the favor, only to be called "classless" by Red Raider fans. We're disgusting and (get this) need to learn how to "win with class."

SCRedRaider, who has over 1000 posts to the Scout forum had this to say:

I have never seen a teams fan base talk sh!t after they won a game. You have certainly done something that I have never seen before.

Alright, I'll cut the guy some slack. Maybe he's only been a Tech fan for, oh, I dunno a couple of months or something. Certainly that's doubtful but, if he had never seen such a thing then he obviously never saw Tech play against Texas A&M in 2001 or Oklahoma in 2005.

Many, many Rebel fans have commented as to how obscenely disrespectful the Red Raiders have been over the last several weeks. Forums and websites on both ends have been overrun with the same old senseless, trite garbage about how Ole Miss "sucks," Mississippi "sucks" (by the way, shit turns real motherfucking personal when you bring the Magnolia State into this), Texas Tech deserves better, yadda yadda yadda. Hell, your own players dogged the Rebels and the Cotton Bowl during press conferences!

Yet, we're not supposed to talk trash because the game is over...

Yeah, that's real fucking lame, Tech. We deal with LSU, State, Alabama, and Arkansas (who obviously picked up the art of annoying bullshit from you back in the old Southwest Conference days) every single season so the fact that your antics and general assclownery have caused a stir among we Rebels is pretty damned significant.

Granted, there are some commendable Raiders on the Internet who are civil and mature about these kinds of things and Mike Leach showed our team more respect than most SEC head coaches would have so I do not mean to suggest that everyone affiliated with Texas Tech behaves in this manner.

Furthermore, I am not necessarily defending the Rebs who have trolled your forums and/or treated some of you with disrespect at the Cotton Bowl. A lot of them have been damned embarrassments. My point in all of this is that, with regards to "class," Texas Tech fans are towards the bottom of the Big XII.

A whole host of you deserve every. single. bit. of. this. shit. If you can't take what you deserve, then either move the fuck out of your glass houses or quit throwing stones.

A Confession

Ok, the gig's up. The SquawkEm HawkEm blog/dastardly web character was nothing more than Juco All-American and me passing some time. It all started about a week-and-a-half ago or so when Juco couldn't find a ULM blog with which to do a blogger Q&A....

...so we just made one up.

After a few days it just became a wildly hilarious inside joke. When I would look through the comments threads and see either a ULM fan seriously wishing to talk football or an Ole Miss fan reciprocating our shit talkin', I would get crazy mad giggle fits. When sharing this with Juco or other Cup contributors, I'd usually end my text messages with "SQUAWK SQUAWK MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!" or something equally asinine.

To the Ole Miss fans who figured it out: thanks for not blowing our cover.

To the Ole Miss fans who gave that SquawkEmHawkEm bastard his fair share of trash talk: kudos on your fandom and defense of our Rebels.

To the ULM fans who delighted over the idea of a new Warhawks blog: we're sorry (kinda-sorta-not-really) for having a huge laugh at your expense. Also, whoever runs the ULM Scout site needs to remove the sticky "New Warhawks Blog!" thread from the forum. We're not going to keep updating it. Hell, if any of you would like to have the blog we'll just give it to you.


Have a good rest of the weekend, Rebels. LSU hate week starts tomorrow so get 'cha popcorn ready.

Bye Week Hate Week!

Oh, bye week, you're so going down on Saturday. Peria's Legion, the Powe-Ped, and da Lil' Bastid have got it out for your blood. We're gonna stomp your ass so deep in a mud hole that you....

You know what, forget it.

I was going to try to talk shit to our upcoming opponent of nobody, but I can't muster up the energy. Furthermore, I really don't mind bye weeks all that much. While I'd certainly love to see Ole Miss on Saturday, I feel that this gives me an opportunity to let my hatred for LSU and those DAMNED ULM WARHAWKS fester to genocidal proportions. And, since Ole Miss can't possibly lose, I'll undoubtedly have a good time.

However, I will be facing a bit of a dilemma.

With regards to the LSU/Bama game, I haven't a clue as to who I should pull for. Barring the apocalypse or, at the very least, a huge sub-Baton Rouge sinkhole falling through, someone will leave Tiger Stadium victorious. While seeing LSU slip to 3rd in the West after we trounce them in a few weeks (you bet your ass I'm callin' it) would be sweeter 'n Grandma's coconut cake, watching Alabama's national title hopes geaux down the shitter would be just as wonderful.

What is a furtive bloggeur to do?

Eh, well, either way I'll be glued to a TV; something grilled in one hand, something potent in the other, and sporting a snide-ass grin on my face.

Remember, we're taking a week off from winning while State's taking a week off from losing. Refreshing, isn't it?

Dearest John Parker Wilson

What's that you've got over there? Yeah, there. You know, right there in your man-purse between the Axe Body Spray and Aquanet...

Ooooh, nice. Your hopes. Wow, let's see, you've got your SEC Title hopes, your BCS Title hopes and... what's that? Wow! Heisman hopes! Boy oh boy, Johnnie, those sure are nifty. It'd be a shame for something terrible to happen to them...

Hey, have you ever heard of Tim Tebow?

Ah, never mind. I don't wanna get off topic here.

So where were we? Ah yes, your hopes! Y'see, they don't mean a damned thing to me. This is because I've got my own hopes and dreams and, while not as lofty or widely known as yours, they're certainly just as, if not more, noble. Yes, noble; such as my goal of getting a fat-assed NFL paycheck in a few months or gettin' the skins from that fly-ass blonde chick in my exercise science class.

Oh, John, you have a future alright. You may have a brief stint in the NFL, marry whoever it is you get pregnant first, and end up coaching high school football in Homewood; but that's not what my future is gonna look like. No, not at all. For me, I'm either living the NFL glory life and Lawrence Tayloring your buddy Brodie every season or I'm selling Brent Schaeffer brand jackets (shiv included*) out of the back of a Ryder truck.

You want this. I need this.

I'm more ready for this than you could imagine. I've been doing my homework.** I've been studying my playbook. This bitch is gonna be on national tv which means that it's more on than it's ever been between the two of us. I'll be poppin' up outta trap doors like the tigers in Gladiator. I'll get all Nightcrawler out there in Tuscaloosa, flashing in and out-shazzam, shazoom-and then it's your ass that's eating turf. When the cameras are on, and the whole nation is watching, I'll turn this bitch all the way to ELEVEN!

Oh, and it's not just me. Peria Jerry, one of the other big sons-of-bitches that's going to drain your bladder, has been spending hours on end at the New Hunan. Nothing adds mass like Moo Goo Gai pan, motherfucker. Kentrell Lockett's been hurdlin' SEC East left tackles day after day with hopes of scrambling that Andre Smith fella's brain. Jerrell Powe's been ridin' his scooter all over the damn place lookin' like Bowser from Mario Kart with the biggest, angriest damn frown you've ever seen on his face. Mount Cody? He's Jerrell Powe's Goddamn foothill. Chris Bowers? He's been, you know, getting his degree 'n' shit.... so... Tillman! He's as angry as a handful of hornets and just about as crazy. I hope you're not allergic, you pansy.

Get 'cha popcorn ready.


Sincerely yours,

Gregory Hardy, Archduke of Sackenstein



P.S. - Fuck you. See attached.

This shit's funny to me, John!

*HT: RichardZinya
**Before you put some "OMG how could u write that??? :( WEAR RED!!1" in our comments thread do us all a favor and lighten up.

The "analysts" have a lot to say

You wanna know how to get all over the teebee? You defeat the #4 Gators in the Swamp, that's how. I'm sure you've all seen something on ESPN, Fox Sports, etc but I bet many of you haven't seen this little gem. Warning, if you don't like vulgar ejaculatory references, then watch this video instead.

(Houston Nutt) worked them bitches!
The fella on the right is hilarious, the fella on the left is a douche. He refers to us as "Mississippi" while sporting his totally rad Florida jersey and cleanly shaven head. Doooouuuuuche. Chompy-chomp, you douche.

More fun captions!

This is fun. This needs to become a recurring theme on this blog, don't you think? Mafpwtac, a regular over at NAFOOM sent these pictures to the RSC inbox and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.



Oh, and I made this one after seeing his inspirational poster fark:I also think "PRISON: This is what it looks like" would be pretty damned appropriate for that image. If you've got 'em, keep 'em coming.

A Tale of Two Quarterbacks

It was the best of times,


it was the worst of times.

Guess who has an all time winning record against Florida? Georgia, you say? Well, yeah, they do. Tennessee? Not so fast. LSU? Nope.

How about the motherfucking Ole Miss motherfucking Rebels. 12-10-1, bitches. What a great 24 hours for Ole Miss.

HOTTY DAMN TODDY!

We'll obviously have a better post up, but for now, enjoy this....

WE ARE... OLE MISS!

Post-Game Report: Samford (seriously??)

A well distributed factoid around the Ole Miss camp this week was that the last time Samford played a BCS opponent, a mediocre Georgia Tech team with a soon-to-be unemployed coach hung 69 points on them. So we, being the good little sports god-fearing Ole Miss fans we are, optimistically hoped for a 50-spot on our side of the box score and a few passing attempts by Billy Tapp, as well as some kids from the Make-a-Wish Foundation getting late snaps at wide receiver (did I just make that joke? What is wrong with me?). Well, guess who scored the first touchdown of the game, to take a first quarter lead? That would be the Bulldogs of Samford. Guess who had to pass downfield to have a decent chance at a first down, because running up the middle garnered mixed results at best? That would be the Rebels of Ole Miss. What went wrong here? I've got an idea or three:

Jevan Snead: please tell me you got plastered and slept with four different sorority girls last night. Please? Honestly, the pass rush was in his face all night (and how embarrassing is that, Michael Oher and co.?), but Snead didn't do a great job of making checks at the line to adjust for blitzes. Hopefully, this was just a result of vanilla playcalling and lack of motivation. And seriously, Jevan, Lionel Breaux is STILL hung out to dry on that five-yard hook. Bring that shit down.

Running backs: Really? We have five backs on our team that would, in theory, start for Samford. None were impressive tonight. Eason hits the hole with all the tenacity and timing of a 16 year old in the back of his mom's borrowed minivan on prom night (last Dennis Miller-esque joke of the night, promise). Bolden appeared to be limited, and his primary vehicle, the Wild Rebel, was left in the garage. And as a note to all 5 backs: shoestring tackles need to be broken, folks. This is the SEC you're playing in.

Offensive line: as it stands, probably the most overrated unit in the SEC. 'Soft' would be a compliment, a goal to strive for, at this point. Almost 1600 pounds of bulk spread out amongst five men with over 100 starts between them in the SEC, and we can't beat down Samford's defensive line? Markuson isn't sleeping well right now, and neither is Michael Oher.

The offensive playcalling was extremely boring, and that shouldn't have mattered. Just execute. Execute against a team with less talent than the scout team that impersonated them all week.

Defense... Where do you start here? For most of the second half, Samford held a 5-minute advantage over UM in time of possession. Blame this on a defense that was unable to stay on assignment all night. Sure, we busted a few plays in the backfield, but where were the turnovers? There wasn't a play that seemed close to a Samford turnover. The desire to actually hit someone seemed a tertiary goal, at best. Houston Nutt can't be happy with Tyrone Nix, can he?

Special teams: glad to see Marshay take a punt to the house, and in impressive fashion. I still haven't decided if that makes up for the punt he should've taken back earlier. Let me set up this scenario for those who missed it: Green takes the punt, finds that his blockers have completely sealed off their slower, more Baptist counterparts, and the only thing between him and the endzone is a portly little fellow in white and a speedy blocker in blue. What happens? An awkward, three man collision, you say? Well, how did you guess? Seriously, folks, I'd have taken that punt back in my flip flops without losing my Aviators or getting my polo sweaty.

Enough with the detailed statistical analysis, though. What all this boils down to, scientifically, is that this game was a load of HORESESHIT! Defense, don't come waving your arms around trying to pump the fans up in the face of this all-male pillow fight. Entertain me. Hit someone so hard that they regret the day they first touched a football. And offense? This was supposed to be an All-You-Can-Score Buffet, and once again, I left hungry, and pissed off at my townie waiter. Did Nutt do this to the team on purpose, so he could yell at them all week in preparation for Vanderbilt? Did he take off all week to help his least-attractive daughter make a diorama of the solar system for school? Here I am, wracking my brain, thinking of ways NOT to score 40 against Samford, and I got nothin'.


On a brighter note:

Narrowly edging out rH0d3$+@r, a bow-tie-clad fratter named Vince gets the weekly 'Awesomest Drunk Guy in My General Vicinity' award. Thanks for your light-hearted yet caustic display of profanities; it made me want to gouge my eyes out a little bit less. Congrats, Vince, and thanks to all of those who played.

fUcK yOu oHiO sTaTe, and Fight On, USC. That is all. I'm really dying to see USC take on Florida or Mizzou in the BCS championship.

Dear MSU: I have to admit it. I don't trust you to lose games in the fashion to which we all became accustomed. You played a hell of a defensive game against Auburn, apparently, and I had to see the body to really believe you were dead. Still: HA HA HA... HA.