Bulldogs4

I have been Leach fan all along. This team has been inconsistent all year. But when we have avoided turnovers, we have been a decent team. Turnovers were killers against Memphis and LSWHO. Now can we sustain this on the road next week against Arkansas. Last year turnovers were a killer against them. Can we continue to play clean football? Obviously, you are going to have a turnover here or there. But if we can minimize the mistakes then we have decent chance to win up there. We will see. Injuries have certainly hurt Ole Miss recently. Kiffin is catching some flack but that is who he is. He is going to stay aggressive.

Really good win by State tonight. TOP 41-19 4 TO’s for KY and 0 for State. Pass - Run ratio was just over 50-50. Will Rogers 36-39 passing. That was a SEC record for %. Defense played well. Just overall good from A to Z.

Teams with high academic requirements have and continue to be successful around the country. Stanford, Notre Dame, the service academies, to name just a few. I agree that in football, Vandy faces a tough hill. But James Franklin was able to be competitive and win while he was there. So it is difficult but not impossible. Saban has skewed the conference with how Alabama dominated the last 13 years but when he retires, I think the conference will be more competitive and that should even help Vandy to climb up the pole of competitiveness.

Vandy still belongs in the SEC.

Good one RM :). State with a good win over Vandy. But you all are right that Vandy is bad. We still had too many penalties and turnovers as well. Kentucky should be a good game. But we absolutely have to play much cleaner to win this game. And it is very much winnable. However if we help them like we did last year, we definitely have no chance.

Ole Miss is playing very well. Defense has made a lot of strides. The Arkansas game seems to be more of an exception than the rule this year. The Auburn game is shaping up to be a crucial game for both squads. The winner will put themselves in a very good position to finish out the season strong.

Cincy struggled @ Navy for a 7 point win. Bama ends up winning big over UT in a game that stayed closer than most thought it would.

State wins a much needed game. Interesting stat. In the conference, State is 2-0 on the road and 0-2 at home. Just don’t see that too often in football. UK @ State is an interesting match up. Last years game at Lexington was probably State’s worst of the year. More on it later. Ole Miss @ Auburn is another intriguing matchup. I think Ole Miss wins this game.

This is the best that USM could hope for given the current circumstances. Much better with regional rivals: Troy, USA, ULL, ULM. Plus throw in Ga Southern, GA St, App State, Coastal Carolina, Ark. State. Just a much better fit. Plus there is some good baseball as well. Should give their athletics a boost and certainly help football attendance going forward. I am glad for USM. CUSA was like a broken roller coaster.

Team is very inconsistent. Some of that is youth, a small part is coaching although I think our staff is good and are preparing the team well. It does leave you scratching your head. Probably the biggest stat is turnovers. Against NCSTATE and A&M, we played clean games and the difference was enormous. Against La Tech, Memphis, LSU and Bama turnovers were costly. Even against Bama, the two early turnovers led to an easy blow out. If we play a clean game , Bama still wins but the score is considerably closer. The next issue is against Memphis, LSU and Bama we did not convert in the red zone. Getting 0 points or 3 points versus 7 points will come back to bite you over the course of a game. Over the next 6 games those two indicators will most likely tell the tale on how State performs. We will see what happens.

Mac is a tremendous coach and a good man all around. He also won two Big 8 Championships at Meridian High (1978-1979—equivalent to the modern day 6A State Championship). So many great players played under his tutelage….Demetrius Hill, Hank Phillips, Kenyatta Watkins, Dexter McCleon just to name a very few. The best athlete that he ever coached was Brian Cole. He was such a great football and baseball player whose life was cut way short in a car accident. He also played with some great players at Meridian High including the likes of George Ranager, David Bailey, Robert Bell, Greg Ainsworth, James Reed, Smylie Gebhart, Ted Gullette, Bob White, Ike Raley and on.

I see where State is wearing maroon pants tomorrow. Ugggghhhh I hate the maroon pants. The all white w/maroon trim road uniforms look awesome. Why can’t we just stick to that? I can see now that are going struggle in this game and probably win fugly , something like 23-17. Sigh….

I disagree that the Croom years were brutal. Yes there were some epic failures in there but he had to do what he did. Which was to purge the program of the talented malcontents that were left over from the Sherrill era. I love Coach Sherrill but his last couple of years were bad. As a result we lost about 20-25 players between the end of 2003 and the start of 2004. Mostly really good players but ones who were not disciplined enough to make it under him. The program went through some painful years from 2004-2006 but I am convinced that the success that CDM had was because of the foundation and recruiting of Croom and his staff. That 2010 team was loaded with talent and in essence they were almost all of Croom’s recruits. Now to CDM’s credit he built on that and made it better. But he came in to a good situation because Croom left him a very good situation. I believe we will win tomorrow and win big. I completely agreed with Coach Leach in his assessment of the game last Saturday. We had individual players trying to do too much individually. I do believe it was a blip and a learning experience as well. We will play much better tomorrow as a team.

The injury rule needs to change from one play to the remainder of the possession. That would curtail a lot of this fake injury crap. All teams do it but if you did that it would eliminate the fake ones. Curles is a terrible head referee. He needs to be completely released from his duties. I think a high school referee would be better than him.

David, did you really just say that Meridian was from up in the backwoods? There are many back woods towns and high schools in Mississippi but Meridian is not one. Brandon is not one. Petal is not one. Warren Central is not one. Pearl is not one. Oak Grove is not one. Ocean Springs has a very good team this year. If they finish first in the Coast Division then they will host either Meridian, WC, Petal or possibly Pearl. The Division is a muddle mess with the exception of OG and Brandon who should finish 1/2 or 2/1. So good luck with one of those back woods teams when the time comes.

I think they should play their next home game with zero home fans in the stadium and allow the legitimate visiting fans to attend. That would put a complete stop to this stupidity. If our fans did the same thing, I would say the same. Yes, similar things have happened but nothing that delayed a game for 20 minutes. Plus it is a miracle that someone was not seriously hurt. I have been going to games over 50 years and I have seen a lot of bad behavior but nothing even close to what happened Saturday night. This needs a severe action to deter anybody from doing this again.

SEC punishment for UT is about as strong as limp handshake. Weak, Pitiful and pathetic.

I am older guy so growing up, State mostly was on the short end of everything in football. So as a result , State fans took pleasure when Ole Miss would lose. That has gradually changed over the last 50 years. Today I generally want Ole Miss & State to both be successful because then it makes our games with each other even more meaningful. Last night, I really did not care too much one way or the other. But after the fans behavior I was definitely on the Ole Miss bandwagon at end the game. I also thought Kiffin handled himself with a lot class after the game. Of course it is easier to do so when you win. I don’t particularly care for Tennessee mainly because of what my Dad shared with me when I was growing up. In 1950. UT lost to State in Starkville 7-0 , which was the only loss they had that year and cost them the National Championship. Whiny General Neyland vowed to never bring a team back to State. It would be almost 40 years before State would host UT again on campus. They played some neutral site games Memphis in between then. But to blame losing the game on where it was played was about as low class as their fans were last night.

Two definite wins against Vandy, Liberty. Two probable wins against LSU and A&M. Both @ home but still each is capable of knocking off Ole Miss if they don’t play well. Two games that are winnable @Auburn and State. Auburn is a weird team. Ole Miss is clearly better than State but it is the Egg Bowl so you just never know. To me , a bit concern is Corral’s health. He is a great player but the physical toll of a game like last night could work against Ole Miss later in the year. I know he is tough as nails but an injury to him would be hard to overcome. State could be 5-7 to 7-5. Hopefully beat Vandy and obviously Tn. State. Then you have UK, Arky, Aub, and OM. It is possible that we win or two of those games but we could lose all four. We will see. USM has hit another 2012,2013 low. They are looking at a 1-11 season. Tough gig for Will Hall who I like a lot. Good coach in an impossible situation.

It was the LSU thing to do. Win a big game against one of your rivals and then announce that we are firing our Coach. That is exactly what it is. They can spin it anyway they want. Surprised a little because I didn’t think they would actually do it during the season. Would be hilarious if LSU wins out the rest of the season. Talk about an egg on their faces if that happens.

I say that very sincerely. We were on our way back home from State listening to it on the radio. It was totally bizarre, I think Richard even got hit by something. My wife was the same as me, she was saying that UT should have to forfeit the game. I think they should have to play the rest of their home games with 0 fans in the stadium. Or better yet , let just the legitimate visiting fans attend period. Plus a hefty fine. If there were no serious injuries from all that, then it is a small miracle.

They got the fourth down call right. He was short. Ball was in his left hand against his stomach. Tennessee fans pathetic. I hope they lose out the rest of the season. Glad Ole Miss won this game.

Turnovers and Big Plays by Bama got the game out of reach early. Not that State would have won but the halftime score should have been 7-6. But that is why Bama is so good. You have to play well and not have any turnovers to have a chance.

Bama is already hard enough to beat. Throw in two turnovers….sigh

No surprise that LSWHO won. Just the way that series is. I wanted to take Auburn so not surprised there.