Is 2017 "Next Year" for the 'Dogs?

Week 4 - UGH-UH:  Upon Further Review ... Thud!!   Well, hello, Earth ... wish I could say it's good to see you.  Yep, I sorta did it again.  You know, got caught up in the hope and the hype that maybe State was as good this year as even some of those Yankee writers were beginning to say.  After all, we'd just beaten the living hell out of LSU for the whole world to see.  I mean, who was to know that LSU isn't really LSU, but just another team that Coach O coaches.  Even when LSU has had mere mortals playing QB, they have always had a throng of Swamp Creatures with names like Remi Prudhomme, Tyrann Mathieu, K'Lavon Chaisson, and Booger McFarland.  Who knew that they were so ordinary this year that they'd have to struggle in Tiger Stadium on Sat. night to beat Syracuse, who last had a good team when Larry Csonka played for them?!  While I hadn't been blinded by that one win over LSU, my vision was undoubtedly influenced by maroon-tinted...

Week 3 - LS WHO?!? It may sound crazy, but I left after the game last night a bit disappointed.  Here's why:  You see, during my senior year of college State won 3 football games.   Not much to get excited about these days, but you see, that is the number of games the 'Dogs had won my first 3 years of college combined .  That 1969 team was obviously no powerhouse.  A few of my buddies and I drove to Houston and saw the Cougars squeak by the Bulldogs 74-0 in a game that wasn't really as close as the score indicates.  Near the end of the season I went with some of the same guys to Baton Rouge to see our guys take on the Fighting Tigers of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College.  The 'Dogs had clearly improved, as they only fell 61-6 to LSU.  And near the end of the game LSU's 3rd team QB, a guy from the N.O. area named Butch Duhe, led them to their final TD in the waning moments ... and the heartless bastards...

Game 2 - Lolly Poly All of us who have watched a lot of football games have seen some crazy plays, but the Battle of the Bulldogs was like the Twilight Zone Bowl -- chock full of wacky plays.  Going into the season I looked at this as a "trap game."  It was the week before a critical game with LSU and the start of a run of 3 straight SEC teams against ranked teams.  In addition, State was 0-1 at La. Tech and had lost to them a couple of times at home too.  Tech runs a wide open offense, so we had to figure they'd score.  I felt better when I learned that they had a young, inexperienced quarterback rather than some hot shot transfer, as they've had in recent years; and that they'd given up some points to the mighty Demons of NW LA the previous week.  But still I was wary.  Then the game started ... and I said, "Oh, hell!  Here we go again." [Cue Dave Clark Five.]  But the fog lifted on State's offense and defense, and the special teams m...

GAME 1 - CHUCKY SOUTHERN As one who has followed the 'Dogs for 60 years, I have thought long and hard about a similar game in my lifetime ... one in which State was markedly superior to the other team.  I've seen State beat other teams as bad or worse than they beat poor Chucky Southern yesterday, but that has been because the other team just flat quit or refused to change a game plan that Little Moron could see was failing badly ... Houston Nutt's Ole Miss team in the 2010 Egg Bowl and Tulane against Jackie Wayne's 1994 Bulldogs are respective examples.  I guess I have to go back to a game that I listened to Jack Cristil call on the radio, when perhaps the best Bulldog team of my lifetime (not the best record; just the toughest), the 1963 Liberty Bowl champs, opened the season against little Howard College (now known as Samford).  Those poor little guys had to face linemen like Tommy Neville and Justin Canale, who later played beside each other for the Patriots, an...

WHY ME? WHY STATE? A time-honored expression of Mississippi State (henceforth known as State or MSU) Bulldog fans has been "wait till next year!"  We've -- and I'll take the liberty of using first person when referring to things Miss. State because I'm a 2 time MSU graduate, a retired employee who worked at State for 25 yrs., have a veritable plethora of family connections to MSU, and have been a Bulldog football fan for 60 yrs. -- so, yes, we've been an eternally hopeful, often downtrodden, faithfully resilient, doggedly patient, and generally appreciative lot.  In my lifetime there have been more lows than highs for the football team and its fans, but that means that our highs are higher and sweeter than those of ... say, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa (UAT) Crimson Pachyderms, who almost always win (and whose fans expect them to omit that almost ) .. and we have learned how to handle losses, as we've developed emotional callouses.  State f...