Weekend of Severe Beatings

A child's graph of the progress of Ole Miss athletics

What an impressive showing this weekend for the Ole Miss athletic program. The two major athletic teams lost by an average of 33 points in the same night and sent Rebel athletics sliding back to the 70's and 80's. I can't remember a more depressing time as an Ole Miss fan. Our football and basketball teams suck, the fans are divided, and the future is the color of charcoal.

The hapless football team got completely dismantled by LSU, 40-7, and the game wasn't even that close. If LSU wanted to, they could have scored 80 points. The Ole Miss offense spent the better part of the night going in reverse and confirming they are one of the worst offenses in school history. As expected, Ethan Flatt didn't make it through the entire game, but he did manage to help produce minus thirteen rushing yards in the first half. An incredibly immobile quarterback playing behind a SWAC offensive line is a recipe for disaster. To his credit, he did survive the first half.

I don't recall ever seeing a more uncompetitive football team. Right from the start, you could tell we didn't belong on the same field as LSU. It's hard to believe that just two years ago we had the national champions beaten and showed we had the ability to play with one of the best teams in the country. Now, two years later, we shouldn't be in the same conference as LSU. I believe coaching is some part of the problem, but it's hard to be a good coach when your players might not make several SWAC starting lineups. We'll find out against State if coaching is that big of a problem.

Finally, congratulations to Rod Barnes for getting drilled, nay obliterated, by New Mexico 95-42. A New Mexico team that lost three starters and was picked to finish fifth in the vaunted Mountain West Conference. Well, what do you expect from a coach that's won 12 conference games in the last three years and lost to our archrival eight straight times. It's an absolute embarrassment he is still allowed to coach basketball at Ole Miss.

Oh, to put the football team's loss into perspective, LSU defeated I-AA Appalachian State the previous week by the score of 24-0 in Baton Rouge.