Life at the End of the Tunnel

The Colonel returned last evening to his vast holdings on the placid shores of Lake Brenda, here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, after a short trip to the future 32nd through 40th states of Mexico (currently the former Republic of Texas) to briefly reunite the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda with her sister and parental units.  A good time was had by all -- even by the, for all practical purposes, unentertainable Colonel.

The physical distance from Mississippi, provided by the geographical imposition of the not-so great state of Louisiana, and the cyber-space access suspension, imposed by the Colonel's Lady for the duration of the trip, served to isolate the Colonel from the incessant cowbell ringing and bulldog barking that has permeated the state since the on-field collapse and season finale of the worst football team fielded by the Harvard of the South since the Hoover administration.

Worst than the team fielded in 1974 -- the Colonel's first fall of matriculation at Ole Miss -- that went 3 and 8, losing to then-lowly South Carolina at homecoming.

South Carolina went 1 and 10 that season.

(For the errant Bama and LSU fans who have stumbled upon this post in search of tree poison or a good corn dog recipe, the Colonel feels the need to explain the significance of the last sentence.  He'll type slowly.  Ole Miss was so bad in 1974, that the South Carolina Gamecocks' only win that season was against the Rebels.)

Worst than the team fielded in 1942, that was the last (and first) team to lose three in a row to in-state rival, the former Mississippi A & M.

Ole Miss didn't field a football team in 1943, ostensibly due to the country's involvement in World War Two.  The Colonel rather believes that after suffering the shame of losing three in a row to Mississippi State, Ole Miss needed a year break from the game.

The two schools renewed their rivalry in 1944.  Ole Miss won that game, and the next nineteen straight.

Does the Colonel think that history will repeat itself? 

Nope.

Ole Miss football great Archie Manning is heading up the search committee tasked with finding a replacement for former Head Coach Huston Nutt and soon to be (thankfully) former Athletic Director Pete Boone.  The Colonel thinks the world of Archie, but he ain't got the chance Lee had at Petersburg of finding a really good coach for Ole Miss. 

Frankly, there ain't a really good coach in the land, worth his salt and in his right mind, who would subject himself to the tradition-trashing politically correct administration and Grove and Square party-centric fan base extant at the University of Mississippi.

So, sometime here in the next couple of weeks, a new head football coach will be announced here in Oxford.  He'll be a good guy and all.  Young, energetic, positive.

And totally not up to the task of competing in the Southeastern Conference.

Ole Miss football will flounder on, sub-par, for the foreseeable future.  That young, energetic, positive coach will last three or four seasons, at most, before giving way to the next young, energetic, positive, and totally not up to the job of competing in the SEC, head coach.

The University itself will eventually succumb to the inexorable tide of politically correct idiocy.  The nicknames Ole Miss and Rebels will be found by the liberal loonies running the asylum to be socially insensitive, and a once-great tradition-soaked school will become just another cookie-cutter public university.

Not such a bad thing, actually. 

Maybe without Ole Miss, the Colonel can finally get a life.