It's Official: We Get Leach in the Cotton Bowl...Maybe.

I mean, we definitely will get Ta Tech in the Cotton Bowl. Which is pretty excellent. If you'd have told me before the season that we would play a top-10 team in the Cotton Bowl this year, I probably would have told you to keep your face out of my face. What's more? Right now I feel like we'll win this thing. But we've got just under a month to flesh that out.

The point of this post is this: Are we even gonna see the Pirate Captain on January 2? Some folks don't think so. And while, apparently, Washington has passed on Leach, and Auburn claims it isn't interested, we've still got a month until the game. And there are lots of openings right now, with more likely to come. And this guy is actively campaigning to get out of Lubbock.

What type of message does this send to the Raider team? The players can say G-rated things to the media all day long, but I don't see how they can't be a little distracted by all this. Not only distracted, but perhaps offended. If Leach isn't there at the Cotton Bowl, I fully expect them to turn in a half-assed effort. A la the Nutt-less Razorbacks last season. Just sayin'.

Rebs (and traitorous former Rebs) on the Wire

Its been a rough week at the office this week, and thus I apologize for disappointing all three of you who expect a daily post here at Forward Rebels. What makes this lack of posting / laziness all the more inexcusable is that there is much to talk about, Reb fans. I mean, two of our rivals fired their coaches, AK and crew were on TV against West Va last night, Peria and Mike got snubbed by the Conerly Trophy people, we still don't know where we'll spend New Year's and the Swamp People discovered Youtube just in time to blast a friend of Forward Rebs.

But before we get started looking into all this, I'd like to be the first to thank the writers of the Office, not only for being the funniest show on television, but also for allowing Ken Tremendous to make a cameo in tonight's episode. The show was obviously paying tribute to Fire Joe Morgan's exit from the bloggosphere when it decided to bring back Mose Schrute, Dwight's scary-backwoods, axemurdery, character-from-Deliverance, beet-farming cousin. In his most recent appearance, Mose pegged Andy in the head with a basketball. It literally made me spew the Dr. Pepper I was drinking.

Good shot, Mose!

Ok, without further ado:

• 
  
  As you've no doubt heard, Tommy Tubz stepped aside this week at Auburn. To summarize, I'm at once confused, excited, pleased in a jilted lover type of way, and curious. Obviously, all Ole Miss people should be a little pleased with a guy who fled Oxford under the cover of night to go to Auburn getting canned after a horrible season. Its kinda like watching your whorish ex-wife get a divorce from the guy she left you for. But in all honesty, why would Auburn do this? Who do they think they're gonna pull in? Whose got the cajones to place themselves in a situation where if you don't beat Nick Saban every year, you'll probably be gone after three seasons? Also, good for Ole Miss. I mean, between Aubs and State re-tooling for the foreseeable future, and with LSU down, and with Arkansas likely still re-building and learning next year...dare I say it...from the outset we look to have decent odds at a trip to Atlanta. Seriously. We swap Florida for Tennessee from the East next year. We can and should beat Vandy and South Carolina. All that's in the way is an Alabama squad who beat us by 4 this year. And we get them at home. Hmmmmm... but anywho, the more I learn about Tubs' recent track record, the less I can villainize Auburn. I mean, the guy hadn't exactly been tearing up the recruiting trails lately. From Jay Coulter, an Alabama sports journalist:
  
  

"I’ve been given access to the recruitment of a five star athlete (class of
2010) that is being recruited by most every school in the Southeast and really across the country. This kid has Auburn at the very top of his list. He’s been
to three games on campus this year as an unofficial visitor. Again, this is a
five star recruit. He’s visited with Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Mark Richt, Rich Brooks and Bobby Johnson during unofficial visits this year. He’s gotten alone time with each of them before games.
Hugh Nall is recruiting this kid and has been pretty good. Do you know how many times he’s spoken with Tuberville? Zero.
Nada. Not once has Tuberville introduced himself prior to the game. Nall wants to sign him badly. But yet Tubs has not made one effort in the process.
In contrast (this will make you sick), Nick Saban faxes this kid prior to each game on Friday with a handwritten note. He then follows up with a handwritten note mailed to him on Monday congratulating him on the prior week’s performance. How many notes has he received from Tuberville? Zero."

The point is this: Tubby is burned out. The Starkville rumors don't bother me one bit. He doesn't have the fire to seriously compete in the SEC any more, especially not at a school like Auburn where one 5 win season means you're jobless. That said, if the Tigers get Mike Leach, that could spell trouble in the long run. But I haven't ever been a longrunner. I'm looking at 2009 - 2010 as the Rebels' window of opportunity for Atlanta. And a daytripping, Pirate shipping, just plain weird Mike Leach at Auburn won't factor into those two years anyway you slice it. Also, FWIW, the homer blogs say the Pirate Captain ain't a-goin nowhere.

• 
  
  
  Well, the basketball squad gave the game away in the waning moments last night against West Virginia, although in all honesty, I didn't expect us to hang around for that long in the first place. Granted, West Va's got very, very good rebounders on their squad, but it became apparent last night, if it wasn't already, that we are seriously hurting at the forward position. Barring somebody on our frontline making a miraculous turnaround, we look to be NIT bound again. That said, the SEC is purty durn turrible on the whole this year, so we might sneak into the Big Dance thanks to a weak conference slate. Also, its become painfully obvious that Dahveed is far and away our best player. And he's legitimately good. But he's also legitimately spastic. There's an alien exploration post coming to Forward Rebs soon.

Yeah. This guy.

• 
  
  Football Awards are Gay:Mike Oher is one of the three best offensive linemen in the nation. Cool. But wait, Mike Oher is not a better football player than a D-III quarteback, and therefore not the best football player in the state of Mississippi. *letting it sink in* Yep. Would I trade my empty can of Diet Tab for the Conerly Trophy? No. No I would not.

• 
  
  On a related note: Peria Jerry leads Terrence Cody in every defensive statistic they keep track of, and the two played half their games against the same offensive linemen. I've stated before that I wouldn't trade the Truth for 3 Mt. Codys. And yet, because Cody goes to Bammer, he gets the recognition. Seriously - and I could go on for days about this, but I'll try to be succinct - collegiate football awards are entirely subjective and thus are horse shit. From the Conerly Trophy on up to the Heisman, nay, on up to the AP Poll, all collegiate awards and rankings are horse shit. The Heisman trophy should go as a package prize to the number one overall pick in the NFL Draft. Eat shit if you disagree.

• 
  
  On the bowl watch, it really seems to me that the Cap One is a pipe-dream. I mean, why would the Cap One take an 8-4 team from 20 hours away over a 9-3 team from like (totally guessing) 5 hours away. Isn't the objective to reward good teams and also sell as many tickets as you can? That said, the Hotty Toddy Blog provides the most logical argument for us to go to Orlando yet in the whole debate. Still, methinks we're grasping for straws. Get your hotel in Dallas already.

• 
  
  Finally, some Swamp Folk discovered the webz. And then they proceeded to post a video of our good friend Ern on the web. Turns out if you kneel it out on the one-yard-line, LSU fans stop making out with eachother and start filming the celebration around them. Honestly, I would otherwise care less about this quasi-funny youtube video, but Ern is a friend of ours. And while he's clearly inebriated in the video, he doesn't deserve to be ridiculed by some swamp person with webbed feet. From what I've heard, Ern's having fun with the video, and probably soaking up the sympathy he's received at becoming the latest youtube sensation. Sympathy like this little post I'm writing right now. And for the record, Ern is more hetero than Peppy Le Pew. Like, painfully hetero. Oh well, nobody messes with my little buddy. It's my duty to protect him.

Me and Ern. To scale.

Post scriptum: Whenever you hear other, maybe more popular Ole Miss blogs just now catching on to the shark thing, please remember that you first heard about the Land Sharks at Forward Rebs. After all, if you were paying attention, you would've noticed Powe doing the dorsal fin at the Vandy game, like we did.

Mulling it Over: From the Beaches of Amity Island

Gi. Ggi. Tty.

HN: Oh hey there Frebs! Heh, Frebby-man! The Frebster! Frebby-reb-reb! Heh, what's up there, bud?

FR: Oh. Hey Coach. Good to see you again. Sorry I'm not feeling well (again) but apparently sitting out in a damp, cool, drizzly afternoon for three-hours isn't the best thing to do when you're battling a headcold. Don't think the whole cheap whiskey thing helped much either.

HN: Aw hell, Frebelicious, you stayed for that whole damn game? Thing was over before my first Gatorade break man. You shoulda left after Dex hit the sideline and turned north on that first little TD scamper, bud.

FR: You may be right, old pal. Anyhow, helluva win there. You may not know it yet, but you'll make and keep a whole lotta friends in our little hamlet if you keep beating the pants off of LSU and State. Just you wait and see.

HN: Listen little bud, if I wanted to hear "good game" I'd just call up Sylvester again. He uh, he quit answerin my calls at midnight. Said something about a meeting with his boss. Whatev. Listen gimme the skinny on this win. You think we got a defensive line, or what?

FR: Well Houston I guess I'll answer that question with a little story. I went to Catholic school, see, and because of some type of beef between the church itself and the Mississippi Private School Association, I wasn't able to play sports against other kids that looked like me. I don't know how much you know about Mississippi's public school system, Houston, but let me just tell you there aren't many 5'7 130 pound white kids on any of the public schools' basketball rosters that I'm aware of, at least not the ones we played against.

As you might imagine, this caused some problems for my teams throughout school. I only mention all this because I remember one particular game from Jr. High when my basketball squad was playing our crosstown rivals from O'Bannon. Heading into the fourth quarter on that fateful night in Greenville, we hadn't scored a single basket. The score was literally 60 - 0 by the time me and my fourth-string friends entered the game. I quickly found out that the other team didn't care much about scoring any more. They had their own little game-within-the-game, one that involved (not joking here) a point system based off of how high up in the bleachers they could swat one of our shots. Blocked shots that didn't leave the court got zero points. Blocked shots that made it to the student section (down low) got five points. The higher the ball landed in the stands, the more poinits, ya see? It was demoralizing.

I only mention all this because after watching several replays of the Egg Bowl, its obvious our defense had a similar game-within-the-game going on. There's a youtube video floating around the webs that shows each of our sacks. Its obvious that our players don't even get excited for the shoe-string tackles, the "qb conceding the sack" type hits. But when they lower the boom, a la Jamarca Sanford on MSU's third-string guy's first play, they go ape shit. They throw up the dorsal fin. They start talking smack --- to eachother. It's like they're challenging themselves to be more destructive. Can you see me smiling, Coach? A Rebel defense with a swagger? I effing love that shit.

HN: Uh, did you say something about Catholic school girls? Giggi...

FR: Easy Coach. I ain't done.

Amid all the defensive love, we shouldn't overlook the fact that we just put up 45 points against a solid SEC defense. Say what you will about how terrible the Bulldogs were this year, they had a legit defense that featured some SEC caliber talent. And don't listen to anyone tell you that they gave up after it got lopsided. We put up 24 points in the first quarter - meaning they were still keyed up - of a rivalry game that they looked at as their only bowl game this year. Jevan did his efficient thing, minus one throw, and the WRs (Mike Wallace) proved once again that they are the most underrated unit in the SEC. BTdubs, Hootie, check plus for that play action bomb just before half.

HN: Yeah I figured you'd like that. Listen, heh, Frebbalebadingdong, what say you about uh, about these bowls? Orlando? Dallas?

FR: Well, much like everyone else, Coach, I guess it all comes down to the opponent for me. Orlando would be fun, but only if we're embarrassing Jim Tressel again. The media coverage there would be wonderful for our program, no doubt about it. But, should tOSU sneak into the BCS bowls (likely) I don't want to wind up playing Michigan State if we could be beating up on super weird / Adult Attention Deficit Disorderite Mike Leach. After all, beating up on a top-10 school who's fans don't think we deserve to be there in the first place would just be the perfect cherry on top of this season.

Like most of our fans, Hootie, there are really only about 6 teams in the nation that I don't want to play right now. We may be all starry-eyed and delusional, but after the last four years, I can't fight this feeling anymore. Oh, to have the Truth and DK fully healthy during the Wake and Vandy games. Ah, to have another shot at Alabama now that we've figured out how to play defense and hold onto the ball. Them's the breaks I guess.