Ah, the billboard wars in the Magnolia State.  For the past two years, Mississippi State has tweaked Ole Miss’ nose with a series of billboards featuring everything from the motto “Our State” to a recruiting pitch stating “Play With The Best.” 

On Friday, State had to remove the “Play With The Best” billboards — even the one located smack dab in Oxford — because the NCAA doesn’t allow open recruiting pitches on billboards.

But as State’s ads go down, Ole Miss is putting a new billboard up.

The new “Super Rebels” board features photos of Eli Manning (of the New York Giants) and BenJarvus Green-Ellis (of the New England Patriots) in their red Ole Miss jerseys from their playing days.  (Click the story headline above for a better look.)

The billboard mentions only the date and location of this year’s Super Bowl, but the underlying message is pretty clear — If you want to star in Super Bowls, start your career in Oxford.

Your move, MSU.

Talk about positive spin.  Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen said the following after his team won the Music City Bowl to insure a winning record:


“You know what?  To me, it’s a great season.”


That’s a rather liberal use of the word “great” isn’t it?  We are talking about a veteran team that entered 2011 with big expectations following a 9-4 season in 2010.  But the Bulldogs failed once again to knock off a single SEC West foe that doesn’t have the word “Ole” in its title.  State had to win its last regular-season game just to become bowl eligible and then had to snuff out Wake Forest 23-17 in Nashville to finish 7-6.

Here’s guessing most MSU fans don’t view that as a great season.  But it was another step forward in Mullen’s overall rebuilding job.  And that much is positive.

The Bulldogs slid backwards from year-to-year, yes, but they didn’t slide as far back as State has slud — thank ya, Dizzy Dean — in past years.  They reached a second-straight bowl game for the first time since 1999-2000.  They continued their recent mastery over rival Ole Miss, winning a third-straight Egg Bowl for the first time since 1942.

Those are signs of growth.  They’re reasons for Mullen and MSU fans to remain upbeat moving forward.

But great?  That’s a bit of a stretch.

With a win tonight in the Music City Bowl against Wake Forest, Mississippi State will have its first back-to-back winning seasons since 1999 and 2000.  Lose and the Dogs will finish with a losing record… and Dan Mullen will have to deal with some offseason doubts for the first time. 

That’s the razor’s edge that now exists when 6-6 teams (and even 6-7 UCLA) can go bowling.

We at MrSEC.com believe the Bulldogs will get their seventh win.  An undersized Wake Forest club cobbled together a 5-3 record inside the ACC, but outside the league they lost to seven-loss Syracuse in overtime, five-loss Notre Dame at home, and six-loss Vanderbilt absolutely thrashed them 41-7 in the season finale.

In that final game, the Commodores rolled up 481 yards of total offense including 297 on the ground.  If Vandy can run on the Demon Deacons, State should be able to run on them, too.  The Bulldogs and Commodores had nearly identical rushing stats on the season with MSU averaging 168 yards per game and Vandy averaging 167.

The Demon Deacons also lost five of their last seven games.

In the ACC, Wake Forest had a middle-of-the-pack offense and a below-average defense.  But what they have been able to do well is pass the football.  And pass defense hasn’t been a strong suit for Mullen’s squad this season.

But if the Bulldogs win the battles in the trenches — where they have a considerable size advantage — and if they avoid turnovers, State fans should enjoy a nice start to their New Year’s weekend.

A few headlines…


Wake Forest ready for physical State squad

Favored State is no lock vs. Wake Forest

Mullen, Grobe Speak on Eve of Game

One final fling: Big game could help Relf’s legacy

Mighty SEC confronts mild ACC in football culture clash

Wake Forest relishes SEC test of Mississippi State in Music City Bowl

Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen no stranger to job rumors

Mississippi State fans hear pride in cowbell clank

When Mississippi State lines up against Wake Forest in the Music City Bowl, Tyler Russell and Chris Relf had better stay healthy.  That’s because third-string quarterback Dylan Favre has left the team.

Favre — a redshirt freshman and the nephew of NFL legend Brett Favre — left the MSU squad on Saturday with the intention of transferring to Pearl River Community College for a year.  After that, it’s anyone’s guess.

For State, Favre played sparingly in 2010.  He completed 13 of his 26 pass attempts or 119 yards and a touchdown.  He rushed 12 times for 8 yards and 2 TDs.

Mullen says of the emergency quarterback situation, “We’ll figure it out”  And Relf and Russell are reportedly happy that they’ll be getting additional practice reps.

The only other quarterback on scholarship in Starkville is Dak Prescott, but Mullen isn’t going to pull his redshirt in this month’s bowl game.  If Russell and Relf get hurt against Wake Forest, it’s likely a player from another position will take over in some sort of variation of the Wildcat.

According to Jackson television station WAPT, “sources close to Mississippi State University’s program have said that football coach Dan Mullen is close to signing a deal to replace Joe Paterno at Penn State.”

Asked about the report, Mullen said Tuesday night, “it’s the most irresponsible reporting that I’ve ever heard of.”  According to The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Mullen said he has not been contacted by Penn State “or any other school.”

Mullen claimed the report was started by “rival institutions trying to ruin our recruiting which we have dominated in this state over the past three years.”

MSU AD Scott Stricklin added: “They quoted a source close to the school.  I can’t imagine who that could be, because I haven’t been contacted by Penn State and Dan hasn’t been contacted by Penn State.  It’s not a story, period.”

Later in the evening a spokesperson for MSU tweeted that the reporter for WAPT-TV had “come to the (Mississippi) Hall of Fame (gala) to apologize for station’s erroneous report.”

All this after the Mullen rumor filtered out of Pennsylvania late Monday and was followed by an ESPN report Tuesday afternoon stating that Mullen was Penn State’s top candidate.

The coach laughed off the reports at the time by saying tongue-in-cheek that his name comes up every time there’s an open coaching job.  If WAPT’s report does eventually turn out to be correct, MSU fans likely won’t be laughing along with Mullen.

Mullen hails from Pennsylvania and his father is a Penn State grad, which partly explains why a coach with a 6-6 record this past season is so high on the Nittany Lions’ wish list.

In the end, State’s coach said he believes the rumors about him are actually a positive.  “… There are two rumors about you: either rumors you’re going somewhere or rumors you’re getting fired.  So, I’ll take the going-somewhere rumor better than the getting-fired rumor.”

So how did Dan Mullen wind up as supposedly Penn State’s top choice to replace Joe Paterno when he’s got a 6-6 record this year and he’s never beaten an SEC West school that doesn’t have the world “Ole” in its name?

His father is a Penn State alum.  Actually, PSU officials probably like the Urban Meyer/SEC pedigree as well as the excitement he’s created in Starkville.  (The part about his father can’t hurt, though.)

Asked about numerous reports linking him to the Nittany Lions’ job, Mullen talked up Mississippi State, downplayed the job, and made the following tongue-in-cheek comment:


“Great.  I’m sure I’m on everybody’s (list).  Am I right?  Every time a job comes open, doesn’t my name come up?  So, you know our policy.  We talk Mississippi State football.  That’s all we ever talk about.”


The coach also said that he is happy in Starkville.  Asked what he will tell his players about the rumors, Mullen said:


“I tell them the same thing.  I’m happy here.  Let’s worry about being here.”

First came reports on blogs and messageboards.  “Dan Mullen is a candidate at Penn State.”  Now ESPN.com’s Joe Schad is taking things a step further:


“Penn State has begun arranging meetings in the search, and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen is at the top of (the) candidate list, a source told ESPN’s Joe Schad.”


ESPN analyst Matt Millen was asked about Mullen being a possible fit at his alma mater and it sounded very much like Millen didn’t know a thing about Mullen.

Meanwhile, MSU athletic director Scott Stricklin has already tweeted the following regarding the reports:


“Deja vu … Everyone take a deep breath and pre-order bowl tickets.  Speculation of this nature is the price of success.”

Dan Mullen isn’t afraid of his team being tight against Ole Miss.  The idea of treating the Egg Bowl as just another game is foreign to him.  And that’s one reason he gigs UM every chance he gets — whether its saying “the school up north” or telling his team last year that they would never lose to the Rebels again.

It’s all part of Mullen’s master plan:


“The reason we do it is because we have to make sure our kid know that this game is different and our approach has to be different to this game. … Within our program, by how we refer to their school and having a (countdown) clock in our locker room and all of those things, it changes the mindset of the players when you get to this week.  They know this is not just the next game on the schedule.  This is a different game.”


Compare that to the approach of soon-to-be ex-Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt, who now admits that he “didn’t think very much about” the Egg Bowl rivalry when he arrived in Oxford.  But…


“All it takes is one loss against them.  Then you understand it much, much, much, much, much, much better.  I understand it fully.  Totally.  We understand the emphasis that needs to be placed on this game, 100 percent.”


One has to wonder if Nutt could have survived at Ole Miss if he’d gone 3-0 against MSU and not 1-2 with back-to-back losses to the mouthy Mullen.

Mississippi State senior tackle Addison Lawrence has thrown a little gas on the Egg Bowl fire heading into Saturday’s game.  It seems the Bulldog believes Ole Miss is on the verge of throwing in the towel:


“I think they’re going to come out fired up and hot, but if we jump on them, I think they’ll kind of lay down.  I feel like they’re wanting to lay down in a way, because o the things that have been happening here recently.”


Is Lawrence right?  Probably.  Teams playing for lame-duck coaches usually have little pep in their step.  The Rebels have lived down to that expectation the past two weeks.

But was Lawrence wise to share his feeling publicly?  No.  If Ole Miss’ players are ready to lay down, why give them any reason to get back up?

Last night at about 9:15 ET, I received an email from a Mississippi State fan wondering how Rick Stansbury still has a job.  A quick check of the scoreboard and, yep, Mississippi State had indeed dropped its game with Akron last night. 

At home. 

By 10 points, 68-58. 

In front of an announced crowd of less than 5,000.

“They came in here and they were better than us in every area and we tried to get our guys to understand just how good they were,” Stansbury said afterward.  “I never felt like, from the get-go, we were ever in control of the game — ever.  I thought we were a step slow and they were quicker to every loose ball.”

None of that will sit well with what’s quickly becoming an apathetic fanbase.

As Brandon Marcello points out in The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, this is now the third straight season in which MSU has lost to a mid-major foe at home before December.  In fact, over the past four seasons the Bulldogs have lost games to Florida Atlantic, East Tennessee State, Rider, Richmond, Western Kentucky, Charlotte, Southern Illinois, Miam of Ohio, South Alabama and San Diego (twice). 

Stansbury is entering his 14th season as the skipper at State.  As Georgia’s Mark Richt has found out in football, SEC coaches start to wear out there welcome after about 10 seasons.

Stansbury’s teams have also been less successful of late.  From 2002 through 2005, MSU reached four consecutive NCAA Tournaments.  Since ’05, the Bulldogs have gone to the Big Dance just twice and they’ve missed out each of the last two seasons.

While State has averaged 20.5 wins over the last six seasons, they’ve also averaged 13 losses.  And losses stick in the memory longer than wins do.

On top of all that, Stansbury used up a good bit of capital by signing Renardo Sidney when others were backing away.  The big man sat for one year as the NCAA sorted out his pre-MSU dealings.  Then he looked overweight and lazy for much of last season.  He also bickered with teammates, openly fought with one on national TV, and tweeted criticisms of his coach.

This offseason, Sidney dedicated himself to being a better, more fit teammate.  But during the final 4:29 of last night’s game he was not on the court for the Bulldogs.

“We were trying to fight from behind defensively,” the coach said when asked why Sidney was on the bench.  “They went small.  You knew the answer to that.”

If you’re looking for positives, Stansbury’s teams often start slow and finish fast.  There’s no better coach in the conference when it comes to prepping his team for SEC Tournament play.

But at some point, Stansbury’s going to dig himself a hole he can’t climb out of… and it could be that Year 14 will be the season when it happens.