All sorts of fun things are out there on the Intrawebs

I'm not at work today (huzzah!) which means that I've got plenty of time to sleep in, play NCAA, and surf the worlds largest distraction machine, the internet. Over the last few hours, I've found these college football related gems:

-First, from EDSBS comes what may be the funniest Ohio State related image I have honestly ever seen:Ok, I know, it's a few days old (had to get that out there before any EDSBS addicts jumped my case) but, damn, this may always be funny. Skinny white Ohioans have dreams and aspirations; it's just too bad scary-ass black dudes with Cajun last names have similar dreams.

-Next comes an ESPN Sports Nation poll result. This poll, on the main page of the website's college football section, asks readers to vote on which unproven SEC quarterback will have the best season. Go now, and vote for Jevan... It's ok, we're waiting right here... You done? Ok, good. Anyway, look at these results:
So, Tennessee's Crompton may be leading the overall poll and, if this were an electoral college system, you'd be hearing the pundits calling the race but look at who Jevan has on his side. Obviously, Mississippi and Texas are behind the kid and Texas' immediate neighbors (sans Louisiana, naturally) are unsurprisingly on his side. But what's the deal with Idaho and New Hampshire? Don't get me wrong, I've been both places and thoroughly enjoyed both, it's just a bit unpredictable is all. Hell, I'm glad we've got potatoes and "Live Free or Die" on our side as opposed to lame-ass North Dakota (good work, LSU). Not only that, but if you look at the little globe off of Florida's Atlantic coast you'll see we've got the rest of the damn world backing up our Rebels. Take that, lame-asses. Especially you, Alabama and South Carolina. You don't have any friends. How does that make you feel, huh?

Finally, I found this while stalking my boy Dexter "da lil bastid" McCluster on Facebook:
For those of you who aren't in the know (over 30), this means that Dexter recently RSVP'ed to the Ole Miss vs. Memphis game. Thankfully, he responded that the "plans" on attending. Whew! If this game is going to be anything similar to the last home game against Memphis, I'd expect Dexter to show up and make a play or two.

Just Tradin' Amongst Ourselves

Looking for something to put on that there dorm wall which is so lately bare? Hey Jenny Slater has some brand new merchandise ready for framin' inluding this little gem...


God bless the blogosphere, baby. And God bless you, Sylvester. You are the walrus.

17 days until Kick-off

Let's pull back the reins just a bit. I'm excited about kick-off just as much as any other college football fan. In fact, I haven't been this excited since I went to the Dancing Preachers Conference in Atlanta.

I feel like I have to temper my optimism with some reality from the last four seasons. The players involved with these games are still on the team for the most part, except for those who were a part of "The Great Smoke-out."  I feel like it's good to take time to look back from that whence we came, so here's the 17th worst moment from the last four years.

17th Worst Moment: 2004 Loss to Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming

The state struck coins to commemorate the event. Ole Miss beaten by The Equality State. 

The season was still somewhat young for David Cutcliffe in the first year after Eli left to go to The League, and the Rebels had mustered a 1-2 start with losses at Alabama(not a surprise) and in Oxford against Memphis(20-13). An overtime win over Vandy left Ole Miss fans with a little hope as the Rebels were slated to play Wyoming and Arky State next, which both seemed like winnable games.

Things went horribly wrong with Ethan Flatt at the helm, however. Flatt, who fumbled once, completed 19 out of 44 passes, well, 23 out of 44 with four completions going to the Cowboys, and the Rebel defense allowed 37 points. This wasn't a recipe for success, but the Rebels fought back late in the game getting an onside kick down by five. Michael Spurlock had engineered a successful drive during the comeback but threw three incomplete passes in a row to end the game and the comeback.

It was Wyoming's first win over an SEC opponent, and the number 17 worst moment of the last four years.

The Injury Bug

Rebels,

Hi there. I'm everyone's least favorite insect (after whatever it is that does this to people, of course), the Injury Bug! It seems that I've really been quite the nuisance to you merry band of Rebels over the last week or so! I don't mean to hurt your season or weigh down your spirits or anything but it's just part of my job.

You see, you Rebels have had a pretty damn good offseason. Your star left tackle decided to return for his senior season, your stadium is getting a fancy-schmancy new T.V. and you fired a national punchline, hiring in his place... well, another national punchline (except this one wins games). Yeah, you rebels were on cloud nine fifty for awhile there and I had to bring you down to Earth. So, I tweaked the cartilage of your starting nose tackle.

Now, normally I would have considered that a fair warning and left you be, but no, your hubris just was not about to die down. Certainly, Powe's subsequent gaining of eligibility caused Laurent's injury to take a break on your mental back burners but, really, that is unacceptable Rebels, tsk tsk. I then plucked away a starting guard, a starting free safety, and even toyed with a walk-on.

Yes, the job does require me to be merciless. It's not pretty, but neither is your arrogance, Rebel fan base. All through this you kept watching the practices with huge, optimistic grins all while paying a certain somebody to spoon-feed you whatever sunshine your seemingly insatiable bellies desired.

I toyed with a starting outside linebacker and even pushed a star defensive tackle out of practice. No, not even the fastest guy on the team could escape my skewed sense of justice (6 legs > 2 legs).

But no, you Rebels just wouldn't let it be. "Oh, well, they'll be ready for Memphis" you snidely chuckled. "Well, it's good the 2nd teamers are getting some reps," you quickly spouted off. What a crock. You just wouldn't get the picture so, dammit, I had to do it.

I broke his foot. Yeah, I did. I take full credit for it, too. What?

Serves you right too. Now you Rebels are finally getting the picture. The glass isn't as half-full as you would have suspected, is it? Maybe now you'll calm down with the kool-aid sippin', Scout.com subscription renewin', shitty t-shirt buyin' nonsense. If not, he's next, and it won't be pretty.

Have a nice day,
The Injury Bug


P.S. - I am not taking the blame for Kermit Tyler being allergic to exercise. Seriously, exercise? C'mon, even I'm not that diabolical. That's gotta be somebody else's doing.


EDITORS NOTE: Yes, I realize that the injuries mentioned in this post are likely out of chronological order. Get over it. I wrote this post while pretending to be an insect, for Pete's sake.

Tuesday Question

Generally, we are the "authors" of "content" around here - "here" being a blog and not a message board. Recognize, we do, that you've come here not to contribute, but to consume. Nevertheless, there is the sporadic occasion where, either for our benefit or for to exercise the thinkifiers of the masses, we ask you a question. Today's question is ...

Who wants to help me go to the Wake Forest game?


It'd be cheerio-sunshine-awesome were I powerful enough to convince you that my motives are totally pure and all I want is to provide all our readers with top-notch on-site reporting. But this is not a Disney movie, and I am not your magic cricket. I am a man who wants to watch football and promises to provide you with the kind of Ole Miss football coverage you will only find at The Cup - the kind that has obscenities. Otherwise, you can enjoy the football equivalent of the hunger strike - Associated Press, Rick Cleveland, and The Daily Mississippian - that menacingly awaits you on Sunday, September 7.

Don't start throwing money at your computer screen just yet (it doesn't work that way, Grandpa). I'm not asking for hand-outs. I'm asking for somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that's up for the road trip (y'know, old chap, gas prices and all), a tip about your second cousin that lives fifteen minutes Winston-Salem, and/or any other helpful information.

I've got Carolina on my mind, baby!

A little slow around here.

We apologize for not being as active today as we have been. There are a few reasons for this:

1.) Jobs

2.) We aren't welcome* at practice anymore so no practice reports (for a while at least).

3.) The freakin' Olympics are on TV! Right now! Seriously, why are you even here?

We promise, we'll throw some content your way in no time.


* "Welcome" is a funny word to use here. I doubt we, as rogue, smartassed bloggers, were at all "welcomed" at last weeks practices. There just wasn't anybody at the gate shooing us off is all.

Ouch...

So, you remember how we are really deep on the defensive line? I mean, we have one of the best defensive lines in the country if not the nation...

Well, we HAD one at least.

I guess everyone just needs to remember. We... are... Ole.... Miss.

That is all.

Doing some blog work today

I'm changing a few things around today so, if you could, please be patient. Most notably, I'm trying to re-vamp our advertisements but, despite my attempts towards the contrary, crap like what you see below keeps happening.

It's really quite a nuisance, as you can imagine. Bear with me for a little while and don't you dare click on those ads unless you want a Blackberry which sounds like a cowbell.

Photos from Saturday Scrimmage

Here are the photos which we promised. I'm pretty sure you can click on the individual photos to open a bigger version in a new window. If it doesn't work, let us know and we'll get them to you another way. This slideshow thingy saves you a good bit of load time and saves us/Blogger a good bit of bandwidth space so that's why we're using it.

UPDATED Saturday Scrimmage Report

Today was another beautiful day in Oxford with the rebels practicing in full pads. A lot of fans showed up to the practice giving the day's events a feeling of a small high school game or even a Southern Miss home game.  And for those of you who didn't show up: don't worry.  I know we called you out, but you've probably got a lawn to mow or an adorable neice in town.  We're cool, whatever.  

Be patient.  We have some pictures and maybe even a video to show you later today.

Our Notes:
1. Nathan Stanley continued to be impressive. He has to get used to the speed of the game, but his throws are on the money.  While he did not get nearly as many snaps as Snead or Tapp (and the snaps he did get were mostly runs) he still proved to us that he has SEC potential.

2. All of the running backs had good days. We have some talent there. Brandon Bolden had the best day of them all and Enrique Davis played hard too.  What is really remarkable about those two is they are usually pretty hard to bring down.  They run hard and never, ever shy away from contact.

3. Ashlee Palmer and Allen Walker are awesome.  During sprints, Palmer was yards ahead of every other linebacker and showed why he's on our first team.

4. Snead was alright. He's better than Stanley and Tapp, but he's just not performing the way we had hoped (and no, we weren't the people that were expecting over 3k yards, 25 tds, and 10 INTs).  If he stays healthy and remains consistent, however, he'll win more games for us than Michbert Spurlane or Breth Schadams ever sniffed at winning.

5. The Wild Rebel was run today with both McCluster and Bolden getting shots running the ball.  They didn't run anything spectacularly tricky out of it, but we imagine they're saving that stuff for the closed practices.

6. Kentrell Lockett had two sacks and earned himself a fair amount of reps as a first teamer.  

7. Andrew Harris and Markeith Summers had good days.  Mike Wallace opened the scrimmage by reeling in a deep pass from Snead.  

8. Marr still looks rough.  Powe also looks rough, but not nearly as rough as Marr.  Powe needs to pick up some speed and soon.  During sprints he was disappointing, at best.  Also, during the sprints, a loud, old white lady behind us was screaming "Go Jerrell!  You can do it!"  She even let out a big "YAAAAAAAAAAYYY" when he finished the drill.  Listen, lady; give it a rest.  Most of us didn't wait three years only to cheer on a jiggly third-teamer as if he were our tee-ball playing stepson.  A couple of us nearly stood up to scream "C'MON, DAMMIT!  LOWER YOUR HAUNCHES AND RUN, POWE" just to spite her.

9. The kickers were on the money with their kicks.  We cannot remember a missed field goal for today.  

More to follow later today.