As that old poker player once said, once the cards were played: “Read ’em and weep:”
Read ’em:
Alabama 48, Ole Miss 43.
LSU 23, Mississippi State 20.
Troy 37, Southern Miss 31.
Arkansas Pine Bluff 45, Alcorn 43.
Grambling 34, Jackson State 14.
Texas Southern 31, Mississippi Valley State 0.
West Georgia 34, Delta State 24.
West Alabama 38, Mississippi College 13.
University of Chicago 35, Millsaps 16.
Huntingdon College 65, Belhaven 21.
We have 10 four-year college football teams in Mississippi. Each one played last week. Each one lost.
I am not saying this has never happened before. I am saying I don’t remember it ever happening before.
There were some good efforts. There’s no shame in losing to Alabama or LSU, and both Ole Miss and State had their moments. Southern Miss, its own worst enemy, was nevertheless throwing in the end zone at game’s end, trying to snatch victory from defeat.
But not quite two years removed from when Mississippi teams (State and Ole Miss) were ranked in the top three in the nation, Mississippi went oh-for. Ten games played, 10 games lost. For one weekend in the Magnolia State, Murphy’s Law was our law.
Two ways for a realist/optimist to look at it: One, at the end of the day, it’s only football.
Two: It will get better.
After all, it can’t get worse.
Rick Cleveland is Mississippi Today’s sports columnist. Read his previous columns and his Sports Daily blog.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.