Mississippi State Football: The Egg Bowl is bigger than Mike Leach
By Avery Cobb
Despite what our head coach says: TSUN is, and always will be our most hated and bitter rival. Let’s get that straight. The SEC could decide tomorrow that TSUN is better served playing in the FCS. Mississippi State football would play them every year with a smile on their face.
Up until Mike Leach’s most recent press conference, I was okay with his performance. I was not thrilled, but not angry. Despite popular belief, we are ahead of where anyone expected us to be (remember, most models predicted us to win four games, and Vegas had us winning six). That is until he said those words that showed to me, and I suspect the rest of our fanbase, that he just simply does not get it. That, or he doesn’t care. It is likely that Leach is more concerned with improving his brainchild, the air raid, regardless of the team that’s running it.
To state that we could replace our most bitter and long-standing rival with the likes of Arkansas or LSU is downright laughable. It shows a blatant ignorance of the history of this precious, heated, vitriolic, grungy, beautiful rivalry. I guess we should have seen this coming with the 3-20 rivalry game record he brought into this program.
Don’t let the headlines fool you, both sides of this rivalry love to hate each other. TSUN fans tend to try and act like they don’t care, but believe me, the state of Mississippi would be worse off should this game go away. Whether it’s behind closed doors, or out in the open, every fan of one of these institutions secretly knows they would accept a one-win season as long as it is the Egg Bowl. Despite their claims saying otherwise.
You know it, I know it, Leach doesn’t. If he loses tomorrow, the pirate experiment should probably be concluded. Even if he wins, the Pirate needs to put something special together next season with the cotton-soft schedule he faces, and that includes an Egg Bowl win.
As always, GTHOM.