The Internet Mafia is Out for Mississippi State Football Again

During Mississippi State football’s 34-16 victory over Southern Miss, a small 2-second video became one of the hottest topics of the year. The video, which was distributed via an Ole Miss fan (who would have thunk it, right?), was immediately made popular by the popular SEC site Saturday Down South. Now I’ll put the 2-second video up in all of its original glory, and let you be the judge for a second okay?

Now as you can see, the video shows a Mississippi State offensive lineman putting his hands on a Southern Miss defensive lineman’s leg to support himself for the equivalent of about 1 second. But that video immediately was compared to last year’s incident with Dillon Day, which also became popular thanks to Saturday Down South.

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Here are my thoughts on this whole situation: Use your common sense, please. Number one, we see his left leg, but not his right. After viewing those 2 seconds for about 30-40 loops, I can see a few things that may make the situation clearer. At least to my eye, it seems that he begins to lose his balance to his right, which the Southern Miss player is currently occupying. Now, when you start losing your balance, you don’t start looking around to put your hand in a place that won’t hurt anyone. No, you immediately just put your hand out and use whatever you can to keep your balance. This is the same situation, except this was on a football field.

But of course, all we really have is about 1-1.5 seconds of actual footage. These 1-1.5 seconds of footage will now follow that offensive lineman all season, along with the rest of the team. But of course, we don’t know what happened after the camera shifted back to the Southern Miss player clapping after making a big play. For all we know, he immediately moved his hand, helped up the USM player, and they shook hands. But we won’t know that, we just have to deal with the consequences of a 1-1.5 second video that the internet mafia has taken a hold of. With situations like this, it’s guilty until proven innocent in the internet. Brace yourselves for lots of “DAN MULLEN HAS HIS PLAYERS PLAY DIRTY!11!!!!!!1!!” opinions from other fans. Just keep your wits about you, ring your cowbell, and get ready for LSU.

Next: Ten Things Mississippi State Learned in Game One