Mississippi Meltdown

Oct 11, 2014; Starkville, MS, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs quarterback Dak Prescott (15) scrambles out of the pocket against the Auburn Tigers during the third quarter at Davis Wade Stadium. Mississippi State defeated Auburn 38-23. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

The college football season has been fun in the Magnolia State in 2014, hasn’t it? Mississippi State got the ball rolling with their landmark upset of the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge back at the end of September. Then the real fun started two weeks ago. Mississippi State thumped Texas A&M in the first game on October 4. Ole Miss followed that up with a shocking upset of the Crimson Tide that afternoon. It led to state wide euphoria and, at least for one day, an armistice between the two fans to celebrate the great things that were happening in the state of Mississippi. That armistice started to erode with the Bulldogs’ dominance of Auburn, and Ole Miss thumping Texas A&M themselves. It had completely gone away when Mississippi State was sent to the top of both major polls and Ole Miss was sitting at 3.

This week saw the state go nuclear.

Much of this Mississippi Meltdown has dealt with the same thing that many Mississippians spent the off season and summer arguing about: Dak or Bo. Dak Prescott was tabbed by Jesse Palmer as a dark horse Heisman candidate during the 2013 Egg Bowl. State fans loved it and immediately embraced it. Ole Miss fans thought it was garbage and spent the off season proclaiming the greatness of their guy Bo Wallace. Lots of silliness ensued, but a lot of it was quieted down when Dak vaulted to the top of most people’s Heisman race after the Auburn game.

Bo Wallace got off to a rough start against Boise St., and the Good Bo/Bad Bo talk continued when he didn’t look so great against Memphis. Then the conversation changed when he led the Rebels to a second half comeback against Alabama, and he just had a monster game against Texas A&M.

All that led to this article by Hugh Kellenberger. Writing about Wallace entering the Heisman race really wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, but for the Ole Miss beat writer who basically poo pooed the idea of Dak as a Heisman candidate in July touched the nerve of many Mississippi State fans, myself and the rest of the M&WN staff included. Our own Jake Wimberly wrote this in response.

Well that got the Ole Miss site on our network all riled up, and the editor of the Ole Hotty Toddy decided to claim that there was no debate: Bo was better than Dak. If you clicked the link, you’ll see that the graphic he used to prove his case left off anything related to rushing the ball and left off the interception numbers for both quarterbacks. Our editor quickly gave us the whole story.

Welcome to big time successful college football Mississippi. The fact that both programs are having unprecedented success in the same year is leading to far more fireworks than we are used to in the state. It is also leading to brand new conversations that we just haven’t had to have before. We are now talking about how one team has better national championship odds than the other. We are arguing about which quarterback makes the better Heisman contender. Pretty heady stuff going on here.

So what does all this mean? I truly don’t think Mississippi State fans would care one way or the other if Ole Miss fans thought their quarterback was a Heisman Trophy candidate. That’s fine, think what you want. He just got added to Bovada’s odds list, so there is some basis for it, even if he has the sixth best odds to win the trophy. The issue is that the touting of Wallace is being done so at the expense of our guy Dak. And it’s one thing to compare the two, but a completely different thing to not give the full story when trying to compare the players. Prescott’s game is built around throwing and running. Leaving out the rushing stats for Dak is just bush league. There is no other way to get around it.

And that’s the problem with getting Bo serious consideration for the Heisman trophy over Dak. At this point in the season, you have to tell half truths when talking about what Dak has done to make Bo look better. Ole Miss fans need to realize that this issue is going to take care of itself. If they want Bo to be a serious contender for the award, they just need to realize that if they win all their games, and they do so because of Bo Wallace and not in spite of Bo, then his chances of winning the Heisman are just fine. That is going to be the case for Dak as well. Keep winning and Dak stays at the top of the list. But if Rebel fans want to know why Bo is being hesitantly hyped as a serious candidate, it’s because there is a history of Bo having a few games that cost the Rebels a game. There is some fear that this will happen again.

Dak and Bo have both been great, but the nuclear meltdown taking place in Mississippi is only going to get worse so long as both teams continue to win. The Egg Bowl can’t get here fast enough because Mississippi might be a nuclear wasteland if we have to wait too much longer.