The Thrill of Victory (for once)

Well Saturday, karma and hubris had a party at comeuppance's house and payback was served...cold. Okay now that I've established why I'm not a sportswriter, here's my thoughts about the win against Alabama for their first SEC road win in six seasons. Six freakin' years. That's a mighty long time of (at best) mediocrity. A few people sort of predicted this, or at least for the team to at least be competitive. Here is the humble plea from Stateskills

So, in the spirit of the crazy student who had the vision to dream of a Bama upset on ESPN, in primetime, on November 16, 1996, I say, please, please, please, let it happen again.

I can only assume he's cranking up Beck's Odelay and partying like it's 1996.

Here's a roundup of headlines:
Mississippi State stuns Bama in Tuscaloosa for first SEC win
Call it a miracle, if not for Bulldogs, surely for Croom
Dogs D-line confuses 'Bama
Henig leads Croom, Miss. State to road upset
This day was due for Croom, Bulldogs
The Washington Post (of course they were there) went with the alliterative Bulldogs Bite Back
In 2006 season summed up in 60 minutes of disappointment Cecil Hurt dares to speak the coach's name who was the victim of MSU's "signature win" of 2004 (Florida fans look away): Ron Zook
And now, a random stat: Alabama hasn't scored an offensive touchdown against State in two years. That might help explain this.


As for the Bama players, here's how they're handling it
From the Mobile Press-Register.

Tide players sound sour notes in defeat
Sunday, November 05, 2006
TUSCALOOSA -- Disgruntled Alabama players dug for reasons to explain their 24-16 home loss to horrid Mississippi State Saturday.

If you listened long enough, you could hear the sound of sour grapes.

"The only reason I can say they're the better team is because they didn't have a lot of penalties like we did today," Alabama running back Ken Darby said.

The final flag count: Alabama six penalties for 45 yards; State five penalties for 58 yards.

Crimson Tide center Antoine Caldwell was not happy with State's tactics in the trenches.

"They were a physical defensive line last year, we knew they'd be physical this year," Caldwell said. "They're more dirty than anything. They do a lot of things between the whistle, after the whistle."

Caldwell sported a piece of sliced flesh under his right eye.

"Yeah, a guy reached up under my facemask and scratched me," Caldwell said. "It was No. 98 (Deljuan Robinson)."

-- JOHNS DISAPPEARS: Tide tailback Jimmy Johns had one carry for one yard, did not take a snap at quarterback, and played only one snap after getting blasted by De'Mon Glanton on a third-quarter kickoff.

Johns got up from the ground, staggered almost to his knees, then wobbled to the sideline into the waiting arms of trainers. After the game, Johns looked in vain for the State player who rocked his world.

Personally, I think the sour grapes sound great. Wait, there's more

"They was picking us a lot. They were picking the safeties. They were taking the No. 1 guy on the inside and making him run in front of us so we couldn't get up over the top of him. We had to go underneath. The referees didn't see that the whole game." Bama DB Jeffrey Dukes.

Mmmmmm. That's good hubris. Coming from the people that were so confident before the game (see the Jimmy Johns quotes below). Here's some more examples: nice one there, Mike and very original Starkville smack. But this one's even better. Courtesy of Bama Football Report:

I think jumping headfirst into defeat makes for fine poetry but lousy football. I think teams that are accustomed to losing find ways to lose. And I think the song says they got a name for the winners in the world.

Roll Tide.

A little note about your beloved Steely Dan reference (from a Donald Fagen interview in Rolling Stone):

Where did you get the line "They call Alabama the Crimson Tide/Call me Deacon Blues"?

Walter and I had been working on that song at a house in Malibu. I played him that line, and he said, "You mean it's like, 'They call these cracker assholes this grandiose name like the Crimson Tide, and I'm this loser, so they call me this other grandiose name, Deacon Blues?' " And I said, "Yeah!" He said, "Cool! Let's finish it!"

But the best example for today's advanced study in irony has to be the writer for the Crimson-White who suggested that MSU be kicked out of the SEC after losing to Tulane.
The comments section seems to have really picked up recently.

Congrats as well to DB Quentin Culberson who was named this week's national defensive player of the week. Not bad for a player on a dirty worthless team from a hick town that isn't worthy of staying in the league.

So for all my inane ramblings, what do we know? State is still a "rebuilding" team with a long ways to go (but with hard work maybe we can beat every C-USA team we play!) and Bama will still go on to a bowl game even if they lose to LSU and Auburn ,where they may or may not can their coach afterwards. Even so, one fact remains.