You either love him or you hate him.

If you’re an Ole Miss fan or a columnist in need of a topic sure to generate a response, you love him.

If you believe there’s a difference between showing emotion and showing your arse then you probably hate him.

Rebel basketball star Marshall Henderson is the boldest provocateur to hit a college basketball court since… well… uh.  Who else has ever jumped on a scorer’s table at his conference’s tournament, taken a faux joint from his mouth and tossed it to the ground on national television, and snapped his jersey in the faces of opposing players, coaches and fans?  Some might have done one.  Henderson is the guy who’s done all.  And more.

From his shark fin finger gesture after a made trey to his off-court insults — “They’re losers.” – to his on-the-verge-of-a-technical interactions with officials, there’s never been anyone quite so far over the top as Ole Miss’ talented gunner.

When I said over the weekend that I thought Henderson was the most classless player to ever take to the  hardwood, a number of my friends in the media chafed.  Yet when I asked them for the name of any other college basketballer who’s come close to doing as much taunting as Henderson has done I was met with stares.

Followed by a change of subjects.

The shame of it all is that Henderson is a phenomenal basketball player.  His talents and energetic leadership should be the talk of the sporting world rather than his temperament.  And if he showed any remorse at all for the actions that have led him through four schools (and jail) in four years, his would be one of those tried and true sports/redemption stories that we all love to sop up like Southern gravy.  “He’s overcome so much and turned his life around,” we’d coo.

Instead, Henderson just throws his past in everyone’s face as part of his schtick.  Sorry?  Please.  The arrest record is good for his rep, dudes.

But Henderson’s actions aren’t just fodder for water-cooler talk.  They’re capable of inciting a riot.  After rubbing a Friday night victory into the faces of Missouri’s team (and then complaining that the Tiger players weren’t good enough sports to shake his hand), Henderson had this to say:

“People take it so seriously that it’s funny for a little white guy like me to just come around, talk trash to people and the fans.  Like, what are you going to do in the stands?  What am I going to do on the court to you in the stands?  It’s funny just to mess with people.”

Yes, it’s funny right up to the point that some ticked off fan in the crowd — say at Auburn, maybe — fails to reel in his own emotions and storms the court to trade fists with the biggest instigator this side of Woody Woodpecker.  Oh, sure, Henderson would probably just pull a knife from his sock and cut the guy, but no one really wants to see that any more than they want to see fans and players to duke it out on the floor.

There’s a reason that 90% of Ole Miss basketball games feature officials cooling players’ tempers as the final buzzer nears.  Henderson’s mouth and deeds get under the skin of his opponents.  Now maybe that takes them off their game — advantage: Rebels — but at some point maybe that will lead to a postgame donnybrook.  Don’t say you haven’t thought it possible.

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Tennessee is now 3-3 on the season and 0-3 in the SEC after a 41-31 loss at Mississippi State on Saturday.  Top-ranked Alabama visits what will likely be a half-crimson Neyland Stadium on Saturday and UT travels to South Carolina the week after that.  In other words, the Volunteers are staring down the barrel of an 0-5 conference start and a 3-5 record overall.

With a coach on the hot seat and a season on the brink, a couple of Vol linebackers helped arrange a players-only meeting in an attempt to get everyone on the same page.

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Aaron Murray knows how to get the attention of an offensive lineman — offer him food.  And that’s just what Georgia’s quarterback did after being sacked five times in the Bulldogs’ first two games.

Before facing Florida Atlantic in Week Three, Murray promised his protectors that he’d take them out for ice cream if they kept his jersey clean.  He’s only been sacked once in two games since and he blamed that one on himself for holding onto the ball too long.

Left tackle Kenarious Gates — all 318 pounds of him — had this to say on the matter:

“It’s motivated us.  We’re playing for each other, and you always have that ice cream in the back of your head.”

Murray said last week’s ice cream trip went on his mom’s credit card to the tune of 50 or 60 dollars.  Which means UGA fans can start worrying about an NCAA investigation… now.  (Kidding.)

Longtime readers of this website know that this particular writer wants more colleges to play one another while wearing their actual school colors.  Meaning: Dump the white unis whenever possible.

A product of the black-and-white TV era, most schools continue to play by outdated rules… home football team wears the dark jersey, road football team wears the white jersey.  That’s reversed come basketball season, for some reason.

Well, the NCAA recently changed the rule allowing schools to wear their home unis against one another if they both agreed to do so.  Southern Cal and UCLA were the first to push the notion and they should be saluted for it.

Now the Chick-fil-A Kickoff officials are getting with the program, too.  According to the official website for this weekend’s games, Tennessee will wear its orange jerseys and NC State its red jerseys when the two teams meet tomorrow night in Atlanta.  On Saturday, Auburn will wear its blue jerseys and Clemson it’s orange jerseys.

Amen, hallelujah!  This is how college football looked for its first 50-60 years of existence.

Via statement, the president of the Chick-fil-A games, Gary Stokan, says this will be a new tradition for the Georgia Dome events:

“This new tradition is going to create an even more electric atmosphere at a venue already known for being one of the loudest and craziest in college football.  It’s going to give both games a really unique look, and we know the fans will get behind this, to help create a great visual effect both in person and on TV.”

The website tips a hat to HD television for helping to make this switch possible:

“The general rule of one team wearing a dark-colored jersey and the other wearing mostly white is in part due to the early days of black and white television when you needed the added contrast to tell one team from the other on the screen. Today’s high-definition televisions with ultra-crisp pictures essentially take that away as long as there is enough difference in the colors of the jerseys. The dark and light uniform combinations have been adopted by nearly every sport and have been the norm for generations.

But on Friday and Saturday, the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game will break that rule.”

Oh, you can disagree with the politics of the game’s title sponsor.  Heck, you might not like the pickle on Chick-fil-A’s sandwiches, either.  But only a true fuddy-duddy would disapprove of teams returning to the days of school color versus school color.

Nice move, Mr. Stokan.  Hopefully your groups is starting a trend.

That’s not to say schools shouldn’t be allowed to make a choice when it comes to wearing white or not.  (We at MrSEC.com are very pro-choice on uniforms.)  Some schools have come to like their “road” looks.  And now that schools enjoy selling 40 different jerseys to their fans for the extra revenue — call it the Oregon Factor — there’s a financial reason to keep the whites around, too.  But for those schools that want to wear their dark unis every week, we’d sure support ‘em.

In fact, if the SEC needs another way to grab just a few more ratings each week, maybe Mike Slive can convince his league’s presidents to become the first conference in the country to encourage darks versus darks whenever possible.

There’s no #6 jersey to mimic that big #5 from last year’s cover, but the SEC made sure its streak of BCS titles won’t be forgotten.  “Home to Six Straight National Championships” is emblazoned right across the top of the 2012 football media guide beneath the huge words “SEC Football.”

And, yes, Missouri and Texas A&M fans, your schools are represented, too:

I must say, I feel a bit like Navin Johnson just for writing about a media guide cover.

Vanderbilt’s new 2012 football uniforms have been unveiled and three things stand out:

1.  Vandy’s has incorporated a big black stripe on the shoulders of their gold jerseys, not unlike the jersey design of the crosstown Tennessee Titans.

2.  The Commodores will now have a white helmet (to go with their gold and black helmets).

3.  VU held their fashion store at a Barnes & Noble.  Not sure why I find that amusing, but it beats a chemistry lab.

More details on the new unis can be found right here.  (Did ya know that “Anchor Down” is stitched into the interior of each jersey neckline!?)

Video of the fashion show can be found here.

James Franklin says his players are happy with the new uniforms.  “Our players will tell you the gold jersey went from being the worst to being the best.”  Quarterback Jordan Rodgers said simply, “Look good, play good,” after descending down an escalator in VU’s new all-white uniform complete with the white helmet that was “hush-hush.”  At the unveiling, only the seniors knew about the white helmets.

“We wanted to save one more as a surprise for (the players),” Franklin said.  “We wanted our family, fans, the media, alumni and team to see them at the same time.”  While Franklin said Vandy will wear its traditional gold helmet on most occasions, his players seem to have a different new favorite look.

“My favorite is the white-black-white,” Rodgers said of the white helmet, black jersey, white pants combo.  “It’s awesome.”  Linebacker Tristan Strong agreed.  “Definitely the white-black-white.”

Franklin also used the opportunity to share his tough talk message with Commodore fans:

“You guys saw last year, we’re not gonna take a backseat to anybody.  You come into Vanderbilt Stadium you better be ready for a fight…  Change is happening.  The culture has been changed.”

In the end, Vanderbilt becomes the latest school to feature umpteen mix-and-match uniform combinations.  While this writer isn’t big on gold jerseys for any school unless they’re extremely shiny — hey, my story, my opinion — there’s certainly nothing too off the wall with the new design.  They’re less a break from tradition than what we’ve already seen at Missouri and Arkansas this offseason.

Texas A&M will break out their new uniforms this afternoon.  Here’s hoping they’ll go the VU route and tweak… rather than overhaul.

The University of Arkansas will be breaking out their third new uniform set since the arrival (and now departure) of Bobby Petrino five seasons ago.  After a fuzzy photo of three Razorback-ish unis hit the web last month, AD Jeff Long hinted that the school might be getting some new duds.

Yesterday, clearer photos of the uniforms — taken inside the team’s football facility, apparently — burned through the Razorback messageboards.  And yes, there will be a new black jersey thrown into the mix (shown at left).

I say this everytime a school unveils a black uniform: If everyone has a black uni, what’s special about it?

Ah, well, if Arkansas’ players respond the way Ohio’s players did last fall when they saw their own black unis (they went out and thumped Marshall after flat losing their minds — see the video below), then I guess that’s all that matters.

1.  Florida is hoping for big things from cornerback Loucheiz Purifoy, the man wearing Tim Tebow’s old #15 jersey.  (I wonder if that jersey features an image of Tebow’s face, Shroud of Turin-style.)

2.  Georgia’s secondary is still mixin’ and matchin’ due to departures, dismissals and suspensions.

3.  Athlon Sports has named Joker Phillips one of the 10 worst college football coaches in America.

4.  If South Carolina trades Arkansas for Texas A&M, this writer thinks it would be good thing for the Gamecocks.

5.  Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney says Tyler Bray “seems a lot more mature and a lot more driven than he ever has.”  (He also likes his team’s depth behind Bray.)

6.  Vanderbilt basketball assistant David Cason is a finalist for the head coaching job at Eastern Illinois.

7.  Missouri is having to defend its academic policies after an ex-football player told Bob Costas’ new television show that he was “steered” toward an agriculture major.  (And you thought Mizzou wouldn’t fit in with the SEC.)

Sophomore wide receiver Demarre Kitt already has plenty of college options.

The standout from Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone, Ga., already has offers from schools such as Arkansas, Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Clemson.

Georgia fans are hoping Kitt will decide to stay home and play for the in-state Bulldogs. They’ll be even more hopeful after seeing his twitter post on Tuesday.

Kitt posted a photo of himself wearing a Georgia No. 8 jersey – the same jersey number he wears at Sandy Creek.

There’s a long way to go with Kitt’s recruitment, especially at such a high-profile school like Sandy Creek. But he can expect plenty of attention from Georgia’s coaching staff until he makes a final decision on his college plans. And it looks like Kitt’s enjoying it so far.

It was kind of an odd story on Rivals.com on Monday.

The story by Tom Bergeron accused several players from the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio, Texas, of being upset about the jersey numbers they had received.

One player mentioned is running back Mike Davis from Stone Mountain, Ga. Bergeron wrote:

“Mike Davis of Stone Mountain (Ga.) Stephenson made such a fuss about his assigned No. 16 that he was given a new number (14), making him the only player without his name on his jersey. But that didn’t help – neither was the No. 28 he wanted.”

Davis wasn’t quoted in the story and he understandably wasn’t happy about it.

Davis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he was never interviewed for the Rivals story and wasn’t upset about the number (16) he was given by bowl officials.

Davis said he asked a bowl official if he could have No. 28 because it wasn’t assigned to another player on the roster.

“I didn’t fuss about it,” Davis told the AJC. “I just asked him. I don’t know where they got where I was fussing about it. The reporter never talked to me about it. Go read the story – I’m not even quoted in it. It’s just not true.”

Davis said it’s also untrue that his jersey number will be a factor in his college decision. He told the AJC he hasn’t spoken to any college coach about a preferred jersey number.

“It wouldn’t be important at all,” Davis said. “The only thing I’m looking at is playing time and the place where I feel at home. Picking a college number isn’t something that’s serious to me.”