Playin’ ... “Nice” with Red Cup Rebellion

1. So would you call this whole NCAA exercise and season more of a Milgram experiment or something a little less dire, like washing your car on a rainy day?

I'll tend toward the latter, because Ole Miss quite obviously does not kowtow in the face of authority. Well, at least not until confronted with strong evidence of their breach of authority. The Milgram experiments ended with some pretty horrific results, and as the premiere protest blog on the web, we at RCR would like to think that we'd sit within the outlier group of Milgram's terror show. I'm trained as an academic, and I'll say outright that Milgram was an asshole and a sadist. Hi, NCAA.

This season is more like screaming into an empty void. No one can hear you, no one cares, and yet you continue to do so, hoping that someone, something, may come whispering back out of the blackness. Throw for all the yards and touchdowns you want, Shea Patterson, but no accolades will accrue to you. And that sucks, because he's damn good.

2. Y'all have remembered that this is *tackle* football, right? I want to be sure after what happened last year.

They apparently have learned, yes, that they're playing tackle football this year, seeing as they locked up four sacks against, ahem, Vanderbilt last Saturday. That nearly doubled their prior season total of five sacks, because this defense is very bad. The pass rush gets swallowed up consistently and the secondary just can't read shit.

I don't really remember last year, so you'll have to remind me in an editorial note, but I do recall [throws grenade].

3. Look, if there's one thing LSU knows, it's having an ex come back to ruin things for you. Still, between Houston Dale and Coach O, are y'all ever going to figure out a proper pre-nup?

No. We will never get through these two marriages because this is Mississippi and this is where your law school girlfriend throws your damn class watch through a fucking wall. She was from Green Bay, but Mississippi seeped into both her and my uncle's souls enough to house that particular vignette.

We never get over shit in Mississippi. We're a backward looking people, which makes for very good writing, but very bad politics. Hootie and COACHO will always be entombed — spirit-wise — in Oxford, because they belong here. They embody the very best of the worst in Ole Miss football history, and they deserve to be interred in Mississippi's blood-red dirt.

I'll linger here, because breakups in Mississippi never end. Because no one ever leaves Mississippi. Your ex is always hanging around on top of you, because Mississippi is Disney World. You ever driven into Mississippi from Alabama or Louisiana? The road color changes. This is a different place, with a terrible and violent history that has dripped into us in 2017, and we can never leave it. Houston Nutt can't leave it. COACHO can't leave. We're here, in Hell, dragged down forever, together.

That's great.

4. So what's going to be worse, the bowl ban, or the NCAA vacating all those parties Ole Miss claims they "won" over the last few years?

Probably the vacating of the 2015 Sugar Bowl, because that was fun as all hell to watch and Laremy Tunsil caught a touchdown pass. Apparently that won't count anymore, and that's a Greek tragedy.

5. As a premier food blog, which chicken finger tray really "makes" the Grove tailgate -- Zaxby's, Chick-Fil-A or Kroger?

Um, have you ever been to Oxford? Abner's is far and away the best chicken finger purveyor in the city. Argue Chick-Fil-A at me and I will throw down 1,000 on my very own food blog about how you are wrong. Abner's is the most local, the most authentic, the most Oxford chicken joint that, if you don't order up Abner's on game day, I seriously question your station as an Ole Miss fan. Or go get chicken on a stick at the Exxon. That's probably the most patriotic.

Get outta here with these corporate bullshit artists, Billy. I'll fight you.

6. Would you comment on rumors that Jim Mcelwain has contacted Ole Miss about its possible coaching vacancy following the recent "Land Shark" announcement?

Good Christ I hope he hasn't.