This will start out with one assumption, maybe two. One, most of you have never lived in Mississippi. Two, most of you are happy about that.
Now we'll move onto one fact, maybe two. One, for the first time, the Ole Miss and Mississippi State football teams are ranked in the top five of the Associated Press Top 25.
Two, I'm from Mississippi. And happy about that.
So I'll forgive you for not understanding just how awesome this week is for my people back home, if you'll forgive me for agreeing with those people -- that yes, this is awesome. It's awesome and it's been a long time coming, and it's beyond perfect that neither the Rebels nor Bulldogs have bragging rights because they are actually tied for No. 3 in the latest AP poll.
A week like this shouldn't be about pitting one school against the other, which is what happens in that state 52 weeks a year, the same as it happens in your state if you're from Oklahoma (Sooners or Cowboys), Oregon (Ducks or Beavers), Alabama (Crimson Tide or Tigers) or another of the two-school states that seem to dominate the landscape. Kansas, Kentucky, Washington and New Mexico also come to mind. And South Carolina. Plus Virginia. And more.
Rebels or Bulldogs? That's an argument for another week, and it'll rage on as it always does, to be settled for a few minutes on Nov. 29 when Mississippi State travels to Oxford to play Ole Miss in what could be the biggest regular-season game of the season. The biggest regular-season game in the whole country, I mean. Hey, probably not. Probably, one or both of these teams will lose between now and then. Possibly -- probably -- they both will lose along the way. But those are plot twists to encounter another day. Today, the story is this: The road to the SEC West title, which means the road to the college football playoff, is headed toward Mississippi Highway 9W, one of the main roads along the way from Oxford, in the northwest corner of the state, to Starkville about 95 miles to the southeast.
Try to understand how this week, this season, is going over in Mississippi. Here's how it went over Saturday in Oxford. Look, it's a state that hasn't had a lot. No need to go there, but you know the history. The 1960s, all that, not that morale was all that high before that decade. Or after. Even now Mississippi has the country's highest poverty rate, with roughly one in five state residents below the poverty line. Sports wise, what does the state have? No major professional franchises. Good, not great college basketball programs.
But it has two SEC football teams. Two that haven't been terribly good in decades, if ever. Ole Miss was a powerhouse more than 50 years ago, but that was more than 50 years ago. Mississippi State doesn't even have that. Emory Bellard and Jackie Sherrill had some decent seasons, and a few of Dan Mullen's teams have had the tease of greatness, but the state has never had a season start like this. With Ole Miss in the top five. And Mississippi State in the top five. And both coming off legitimate victories, Ole Miss knocking off No. 3 Alabama and Mississippi State thumping No. 6 Texas A&M.
Starkville is foreign territory to me, but I was raised in Oxford, spending most of my childhood there. Dad taught law school at Ole Miss. Mom also worked on campus, and attended Ole Miss at night and got her degree from there. Growing up in Oxford the way I did was magical. Town was so small you could ride a bike anywhere. Campus was so inviting you could hang out in the student union. Security was so lax you could shoot hoops at Tad Smith Coliseum if you knew where the light switches were located (I did), and you could spend weekends at Vaught-Hemingway with your dad, kicking field goals and running pass patterns on what used to be artificial turf. During the season, I mean. The Rebels might play host to Georgia on a Saturday -- I'd sell cokes at the stadium, and still wish I could thank the nice Ole Miss fan who bought my whole tray when I dropped the thing, losing more than $20 of Coke -- and my dad and I would be on the field on Sunday. Nobody stopped us. Nobody cared. Small towns. Magical.
Humble, too. Oxford got a Wal-Mart in the early 1980s, behind the Danvers burger place, and kids headed there on weekends. That was how sad our little town was. We got a Wal-Mart and we hung out there. Because there was nowhere else to go.
The Rebels stunk back then, not that they were terribly good other years. Billy Brewer and Tommy Tuberville and David Cutcliffe won more than they lost, but nobody won all that much. Steve Sloan was the coach for my era, and the Rebels stunk. And it didn't seem to matter. This was Ole Miss, and Ole Miss wasn't meant to win big in college football. That was the malaise around Oxford, self-defeatism borne from years of hard lessons administered at the hands of Bear Bryant and Johnny Majors and Charles McClendon.
Starkville wasn't home to me, but I imagine the self-defeatism was similar there, if not worse. At least Ole Miss had Archie Manning and Jake Gibbs. What did Mississippi State have? A winning record against only one SEC rival: Vanderbilt.
Get my point?
This is a state that has known hard times and mediocre football, and right now it has a pair of teams in the top five. It might not last, but it's here now, and one incredible weekend could lead to another. No. 3 Ole Miss plays Saturday at No. 14 Texas A&M. No. 3 Mississippi State plays No. 2 Auburn. ESPN's "College GameDay" will be in Starkville for that one, which gives Starkville the chance to be the center of the college football universe, as Oxford was this past weekend when Woody Harrelson, Katy Perry and Vince Carter were among the stars at the game.
The stars are aligning for Mississippi. It might not last, probably won't, but it happened. Not in my childhood, but in my lifetime. Never in my wildest ...
