Bulldogs4

Not sure why Dillingham chose to make a mountain out of a plain. Typically teams like to stay away from a stadium/campus when playing on the road. No big deal there. Obviously this game has been on the schedule for years so they could have easily made hotel reservations a long time ago. Second, there are plenty of caterers in the Starkville area so food prep should not be an issue at all. So why he chose to impugn Texas Tech and indirectly throw a barb at State with the food prep issue is beyond me. Then chose to praise Seattle for their food options. As if that had anything to do with this situation. Third, when someone discovers a casino in Starkvegas, someone please let me know… Back to the game, not sure what to expect. Arizona State is in a different position this year. Last year, they came out of nowhere to have an excellent season. This year they are ranked #12 after one game. Expectations are different. More pressure on the team to win and win big. Talent wise, I really don’t know what the difference is between the two teams. Intangibles: State is a hungry team. AZ State is the team that may feel a bit entitled. Depending on Turnovers, generally speaking, games are W/L at the LOS. Are we better enough this year to break even or be better than them at the LOS. That will tell the tale.

Well I guess I will stay home then since we have no chance. But JK, I will still be there anyway. I did not say we would win but at the least hopefully we can make it competitive. Replacing a generational player like Skattebo with someone just as good will be interesting to see with my own eyes. That guy had a presence that elevated the whole team (like Mangum in baseball). If this new guy can do that as well, I will tip my hat to him.

Good win for LSU on the road. Not that I like LSU but for the SEC it was a good win. Ole Miss rolled as expected. AZ State & State is intriguing match up. We are certainly improved and they don’t have Skattebo any more. That guy was a freight train last year. We have got to clean up the penalties on offense. Certainly it may be a competitive game and being at home with a big crowd in DWS will hopefully help. We will see what happens. I will be there. At the very least it feels good going into a game where I feel we have a boxer’s chance. Let’s Go Dawgs!

Yep and Bama’s OL is struggling as well. But it is a 14 point game and still a long way to go.

Kind of what I expected. USM was going to play hard with emotion but State would eventually wear them down. Defense has played well.

One quarter to play, to this point, Auburn is the better team. 31-17. But game is not over.

MS has 82 counties and AL 67 counties. And AL is slightly larger than MS geographically. We could cull it down to 50 counties and have one school district per county. Plus cull the legislature down to about 70 House Districts and about 30 Senate Districts. Way too much money floats around in the Central Office of each School District while the teachers are suffering from lack of everything. Parental support, Financial Support, Supplies Support etc.

Looks like they have come to their $en$es.

Also surprised that Newton has not been absorbed by Newton County. And here in Meridian they need to consolidate the school districts into one for all of Lauderdale County. Way too much bloat in both central offices. There are still enough students to keep 5 high schools in the county but no need to have two district offices a few miles apart. All that wasted money could go into the classrooms to help the teachers instruct better. School consolidation is not an if but a when in the years ahead. Why? Lack of money to continue operating small schools. Plus with the ease of transportation in the current day, distance to a school is less of a factor than it used to be.

I do think the CDM ship is gone, over the horizon, Columbus has reached the West Indies instead of the East Indies. Done. Stick a fork in it. Toast. I say that because had Mullen stayed at State through 2018 and then left, he would have a lot more goodwill with the fan base. He had a loaded team that probably would have won 10-11 games with him at the helm instead of 8 with a new coach. From a fan’s perspective, he left at the most worst possible time. And most of us still have long memories. Plus second go arounds rarely turn out well. I appreciate all he did and I hope he succeeds in Las Vegas but I just don’t see a place for him back here as a HC.

I would agree. At Petal he will have a high floor but a low ceiling. They will be good but I don’t think he will ever have the talent to win a State championship at Petal. No question it is a good job though. i wished he would have stayed at Meridian. In one short year, he had really galvanized the community and put a competitive team on the field. Now granted he had a generational player in Daniel Hill but there was talent at the other positions as well. Yes there are some challenges here but I felt like he was capable of revitalizing the program and really bring the fans back to Ray Stadium. Now I know you WC guys were not high on Shelton Gandy but I have heard a lot good things about him from people close to the program. Now I don’t know if that will translate into more wins for Meridian or not. But so far he seems to be doing a solid job. We will see how it goes going forward. Back to the original point. Boyles would have won multiple SC’s at WC had he stayed.

Iowa State with a 24-21 win over Kansas State that quite frankly felt worse than a three point win. They dominated the fourth quarter with the exception of the one long pass for a TD by KState. Iowa State could certainly be a team to watch this year and could knock on the door for a playoff spot. A lesser talented team that has played together longer is often times better than a bunch of mercenaries that are being paid to play as a bunch of individuals. We will see how it goes.

If you keep knocking on the door it will eventually open. It took OG a number of years to finish the gig and win one. Brandon has been consistently good for quite some time. Will it happen this year? Maybe, but they will be in the mix when it comes playoff time.

Jamborees are scrimmages which are important but generally you are only playing two quarters. When the season was starting August 15th, they were playing these jamborees are early as August 8th which was asinine. Plus starting Labor Day just makes better sense. Now if they would stop playing on Thursday (except the last game of the season, which makes good sense) and get back to playing on FRIDAY NIGHT, all would be good. High school football SHOULD BE ON FRIDAY NIGHT.

It does. And even though Kiffin has got a good thing going at Ole Miss it is going to make his task more difficult too. Just not to the extent of Lebby’s. But even your top tier teams are going to struggle to win 10 games in the regular season. I can foresee multiple 8-9 win teams in the years ahead. 10-2 will be a great season in the year’s ahead (IMHO).

Thoughts on the 9 game conference schedule. Obviously for State & Ole Miss, it adds one more tough game plus one P4 game to the schedule. Ten P4 games plus one G5 and maybe one FCS or possibly two G5 games. Expectations need to be aligned towards winning 6 games in an average season and 8-10 games every 4th or 5th season with those seasons having a shot at the playoffs. That is just being realistic. If they go to the 16 team playoff, then l look for the bowl games to be culled down to maybe 15-20 tops. But it may even be down to ten bowl games. IMO, there will be room for some of them to remain over the Christmas break to fill in between the playoff games. If they keep the bowl games, then the NIL agreements need to specify that the player must play in all of the games (unless injured) to receive their stipends. What say you all?

You are correct. Harsin was doing a reasonably good job up to that point but that 2+ quarters destroyed the Auburn football program and they are still recovering from it today. Throw in their boosters disparaging him so bad as a part of it as well and he was doomed.

I am so thankful that public schools moved the start of the season back to Labor Day weekend. That just makes so much more sense. I know it is still hot but a week or two later this time of year does make a small amount of difference in the weather.

It appears that USM has some good skill players but we know most often games are won and lost at the LOS. In this game, I believe State will have a significant advantage on both sides of the LOS. Emotion can carry you for a while but as 83 noted, State appears to be much improved this year. It is the first game of the year, so as always there are a lot of unknowns. An upset by USM is a long shot as anything can happen in a one game scenario. It would be unexpected but it would not be the most colossal upset of the season.

I think USM will be improved under Coach Huff and they are going to be successful. But playing State in the first game is going to be a tough way to start the season. And with Lebby being in his second season, State should be a more polished team. Even with the 11A start it should be a great atmosphere in Hattiesburg.

Yep. Just not much to talk about right now.

Meridian’s schedule is tough. Don’t know much about Columbus but NC, Starkville, OS and Hattiesburg are all solid out of conference games and then the District schedule is always going to be loaded.

Very sad. Hard to understand why people want to settle their grievances with gunfire. What happened to a good ole fist fight? A bullet is most often final or at least life altering. Prayers for the Adams family and for the Ole Miss football team. Losing a teammate is gut wrenching in any circumstance but particularly like this.

State will be improved though that is not saying much from our starting point. The conference can be weird at times and games that are seemingly a shoe in for a team can and do turn into losses. I think State (if we beat Arizona State to gain some confidence) might pull a few of those off this year. For whatever reason, I don’t see any conference team winning more than 10 games in the regular season. I know that sounds crazy but with all the player movement I predict a lot of inconsistency this year. A team will look great one week and then horrible the next week. There are going to be a slew of teams from 7-5/8-4 to 10-2 this year and the conference is going to be a muddled mess.

Yep. I think State will be much better as a football team on the field in all aspects. The problem being the schedule is brutal. We could see a significantly improved team from a year ago that might go 4-8 or 3-9 or possibly 5-7. 6-6 would require winning all the OOC games along one minor upset and one major upset in conference play. Hard to see that happening but games are won and lost on the field. So we will see. Ole Miss will be good but I do think they will take a step back this year…winning perhaps 7-8 games. 9 is remotely possible but again the conference is so tough and there will be several pickem type games that could go either way. USM under Huff will struggle but I do see hope there as they will be improved over last year and will play with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Not sure about their schedule but the SBC should be present a few winnable games.