Sep 13, 2014; Tuscaloosa, AL, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide fan shows his pride during the game against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports
Message Boards are a great place to go and discuss all things related to sports in general, whether it’s college, pro, or something else altogether. The one thing about them though is that it can become apparent at times some fans are completely consumed in their fandom and don’t pay too much attention to reality. We are all guilty of that at some point. So now we have the Message Board Post of the Week. Each week, I will go through some of the more popular message boards and find some good ones. Understand that good can mean a lot of things. It could mean insightful. It could mean it’s so bad it’s funny. It could mean that it is based on so many false perceptions that you can’t help but sit there and stare at your screen with your jaw dropped. These will all come from the public pages of the message boards, so I won’t be breaking any perceived privacy that someone might think they have.
We go to a Mississippi State message board today, not because it’s a funny post, but because it is playing on the theme we have all heard in the lead up to the Alabama game: disrespect. There is always an excuse for why we won the games we did. We got LSU early. Texas A&M wasn’t playing Kyle Allen. Auburn made too many mistakes. You’re going to read all about the narrative from this thread on sixpackspeak.com. Dawgology got the thread started with this.
"I keep hearing that State"
"Got lucky meeting teams in our big wins early…before those teams came together. Specifically LSU. This is how the Bama fans around me are justifying that they win easily while still admitting they had a close call against LSU. My question is this…who says MSU isn’t really putting it together just now? We slept walked through the past three teams and the game was never in question (except maybe Ark which I was STILL not worried during that game). Apparently, the only teams that are able to develop through the season are the big teams we have beaten this year."
It’s weird how all the logic that applies to other teams doesn’t apply to Mississippi State. Granted, we aren’t an inexperienced team, but we can improve just as much throughout the course of the season just like everyone else.
FlotownDawg seems to agree.
"I love that logic. Been hearing it all year. First from Bear fans and now from Bama fans and some in the national media. The only teams that improve during the year are teams we played early in the year. I’m sure everyone things LSU would kick our ass now because they’re so badass that they almost beat the best team in the history of college football last week. Meanwhile, we have only gotten worse since the Auburn game. I mean, we only covered the spread against Kentucky on the road and beat an Arkansas team that is favored against the same LSU team that almost beat the greatest team in college football history last week. Obviously we would lose to Arkansas if we played them again because I’m sure they’ve improved so much as well."
FQDawg reminds us that this same logic can be applied to other teams as well.
"I just think Ole Miss is lucky that they got Bama when they did…"
"Is that how this works?"
Stratdawg reminded us about one very important aspect of our defense that most people seem to forget when we played LSU.
"That’s BS. LSU still sucks. The MSU/LSU game is what it looks like when Team A can only run the ball, and Team B has a nasty front 7."
And AHSDawg might have summed up the key to this game.
"^^THIS^^ People are vastly underestimating the impact our front 7 has on games. And, will have on Saturday. If we get pressure with 4, all other pieces of our team falls into place."
I don’t know if Mississippi State will win. I don’t know if this game will be close, a blowout, or somewhere in between the two.What I do know is that the way people talk about Mississippi State this season, you’d think they were barely over the .500 mark, not the number 1 team in the country. Feel free to count out the Bulldogs if you must, but you are probably going to regret doing it.