[11/17/05]

I can remember vividly writing in early August that time for college football had come, the dawn of a new year with new expectations for our Big Three. Road trips were set and bowl plans made.

Now look at those same Big Three.

Almost makes you want to go out, rewind the clock and start all over. Football this year in Mississippi has been awful. Mississippi State can’t win. Ole Miss can’t score. And Southern Miss has made every opposing running backs look like Walter Payton.

The Egg Bowl will be about as exciting as watching an egg in a bowl. Southern Miss’ chances of making a quality bowl game are as low as its game attendance.

Having bad football by all three of the largest state schools is akin to the three largest potato farms in Idaho producing an entire crop of lousy spuds.

Seems like yesterday (well, 1999 to be exact) that Mississippi became the talk of the college football world. The big three were ranked in or near the Top 25. Columnists wrote about how dominant this state’s football could be if it were more like Nebraska with one school.

Imagine combining these three teams into one now? OK, the New Orleans Saints already exist, but you get the idea.

On Dec. 27, 1999, Ole Miss defeated Oklahoma in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport.

Three days later, Mississippi State bested Clemson in the Peach Bowl. One day after that, Southern Miss rang in the new year with a 23-17 Liberty Bowl victory over Colorado State.

Now this. Southern Miss has an outside chance of playing in a bowl in Mobile, about as prestigious as the second-place hoop shoot trophy I once won. Ole Miss and Mississippi State will be bowling – most likely gutter balls.

With so much anticipation for this season, it’s hard to even fathom that I would beg for it to be over. Maybe this is just a down year in Mississippi football. Maybe the tides will begin to turn and football in this state will return to its lofty national perch it sat upon in 1999.

Living through a football season like the one we are in now is a foreign experience, and one no football-loving man, woman or child can stand for much longer.

I sure hope it happens soon. Watching an egg in a bowl just doesn’t get the blood flowing.