Quote Originally Posted by Boya View Post
Since Mullen came on board we have done everything we can to alienate UM. The hope was that those fools would do exactly what they did....try to "put us in our place" and get caught cheating resulting in crippling Sanctions. Now we are in a great position to sit back and watch the whole thing burn down.

Maybe we aren't specifically involved in this meltdown but we sure as hell have a role in how all this has played out.
I don't that was necessarily the "gameplan" any more than Ole Miss losing to Jacksonville State was part of the "gameplan". Sometimes things just kind of happen.

I think the reality is Dan is a good coach overall but unlike Tyler he actually tries to do things on the up and up as much as possible and he doesn't have the baggage that Jackie had. So, because of that- it's more difficult to "put us in our place". Because Dan is a good coach we have started to win consistently and also we have started to defeat them consistently. The last time Ole Miss was on probation, we proceeded to land a 3-8 egg including a loss to Ole Miss at home as well as a loss to Northeast Louisiana despite having TWO first round draft picks on the team in Eric Moulds and Walt Harris. And then there were rumors of Jackie being fired after we lost to La Tech in 96 until Jackie saved himself by upsetting Alabama and then winning the Egg Bowl. But we weren't able to put Ole Miss away at that time even though the door was wide open. That loss in 95 was really big in hindsight because had we won that Egg Bowl we would have won six out of seven Egg Bowls between 1993 and 1999. With the one loss being a one point loss on what was essentially the last play of the game of a game that we completely dominated for three and a half quarters.

I also think that Dan has a sustainable long term plan- Jackie signed too many JUCO's and it started to put a major strain on us. Especially when they stopped producing. We are winning the state in terms of productive college players- as in how they actually turn out once they get to MSU and develop as players. In years past, a guy like Vick Ballard goes to USM and Benardrick McKinney probably ends up somewhere like Memphis or Jackson State.

We just have to be prepared to defend ourselves when the time comes. But the good news is I highly doubt we're also going to have Georgia, Alabama, Florida State, etc pissed off at us as well.