Ole Miss Fan's Obsession with Mullen: A Battle to Stay Relevant

Mississippi State has spent the last three academic years dominating Ole Miss. Here are the facts:

• Egg Bowl victories in 2009, 2010 and 2011
• Won 4 of 5 in men’s basketball
• Won 4 of 5 in women’s basketball
• Won 3 of 4 in baseball last year

The leader of all this is football. If the football program isn’t doing well, perception says nothing is. Ole Miss has lost 14 consecutive SEC games. They’ve lost 5 of 7 to Vanderbilt. They lost to Jacksonville State. 2011 was their first 10-loss season. With the SEC West winning 4 of the last 5 national championships, TSUN is locked in the cellar with no hope of getting out.

So, they are doing whatever they can do to keep MSU from leaving them behind. They are obsessed with attacking Dan Mullen by any means necessary. They’ve said he is a carpetbagger who is brain-washing Mississippi State fans with his rhetoric. They’ve tried to get State fans to turn their back on him by accusing him of being every religion in the book other than Christian. They’ve accused him of being a narcissist who doesn’t care about anyone other than himself. Nothing is working, the MSU stranglehold just keeps getting tighter.

With no hope left, their cognitive dissonance has left them with the idea that Dan Mullen is trying his hardest to get out of Starkville, but no other schools with accept him because of his narcissism and lack of coaching prowess. Now Mississippi State fans are stuck with Mullen for years and UM will rise to defeat him since Pete Boone and Houston Nutt are finally headed out the door.

Sure, Mullen was the one who turned up the heat on this rivalry. He is the one who has made Ole Miss the primary focus in MSU’s effort to ‘own the state’ of Mississippi. He called them out, challenged them to a fight, beat them, beat them again, then insulted them and beat them again. The result: THIS IS OUR STATE!

There’s nothing Ole Miss can do other than say billboards, slogans and recruiting rankings are dumb. But somehow billboards aren’t dumb when they put one up, slogans aren’t dumb when they can chant them after a basketball win, and recruiting rankings weren’t dumb the previous three years when they were highly ranked.

They are grasping for straws, and in doing so they’ve created a fixation on Dan Mullen. They hate him. The Egg Bowl will be their season in 2012…count on it. For Mississippi State, it is time to move on to bigger things. It’s time to move up the ladder of the SEC West, and leave Ole Miss so far in the dust they are an afterthought. But come November 24th, it will be time to defend our territory once again.

This week’s MSU/Ole Miss basketball game is a must win. We had them on the ropes a couple of weeks ago but let our foot off the gas and they got a breath of air. It’s time to put the pressure back on and maintain our control of them in all sports. This is Our State! HAIL STATE!