Justin's Weekly Brain Seepage: Week 12

Wasn’t that the show with Chris Elliot…?

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez told Wolverine fans to “get a life” this week. Yeah Rich, that’s exactly what you want. The hundred grand worth of fans that show up in Ann Arbor on Saturdays taking leisure classes or gardening or volunteering at a soup kitchen instead of packing your stadium and cheering for your team.

I don’t know how things work in Michigan, but in Baton Rouge we put our lives on hold for football season. We schedule weddings, births (not always possible, trust me), and other events around LSU football Saturdays. Several charities scramble to hold their fundraising events on bye weeks in order to get people to show up. And if an event has to happen on a game day then the game is incorporated into the event, such as my daughter’s birthday parties for the next 18 years.

College football fans are some of the most dedicated fans in all of sports, trust me Rich, you don’t want them to get a life. If they do, it’ll mean they’ve stopped caring and that’ll mean you’ll have to “get a job”.

Now we’ll test the true power of this fully operational battle station…

With ESPN’s new deal with the SEC and with the BCS, look for:

ESPN to finally push the SEC!

Just think such a move last year might’ve caused every single person on the ESPN Pre game set to pick LSU instead of Ohio State before last year’s BCS Championship, instead of the other way around.

No one remembers that do they?? Everyone picked against Ohio State at ESPN. Everyone, Lee, Chris, Kirk, Desmond, Mark, Lou, guest commentators, interns, the sound guy, the camera man, runners, the teleprompter guy………..!!!

South Carolina to become Dr. Lou’s main talking point instead of Notre Dame.

Fox analyst Charles Davis will jump to ESPN.

This isn’t really a joke. He’s not horrible, for some reason I like him and since Fox’s main network hosts about seven whole games a year, why not?

 ESPN to all of a sudden be ok with this BCS format.

Which will prompt ESPN to hire the senior Jim Mora: “Playoffs!!!???? Don’t talk about playoffs!!! Are you kidding me, playoffs???!!”

Everyone else in the nation to hate the SEC even more.

Don’t hate….appreciate. Maybe the BCS championship could just be the SEC championship game. I’m just kidding.

Oh crap, does this mean LSU will have to play Mississippi State right after “Game Day” with Pam Ward announcing??!!

Please God, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Get Excited, It’s Magnolia Bowl time!!!

What, you haven’t heard of the Magnolia Bowl?? Why it’s been played 96 times since 1894. It’s the new name for the LSU-Ole Miss game. These two rivals hate each other and always seem to hook up late in the season. LSU and Ole Miss have taken turns spoiling each other’s seasons since the two schools started playing football.

This might not be a well known rivalry across the nation but the two fan bases are well aware of the history of hatred between the two schools. But since the game has lost some of the intensity through the years (mainly after those years ending in 50’s or 60’s), the game now has a new name.

The “Magnolia Bowl” was a joint creation by both school’s student governments in order rejuvenate the rivalry. There will also be a traveling trophy awarded to the winner every year.

That now makes three rivalry games that LSU fans couldn’t care less about:

1) The Tiger Rag: the LSU-Tulane game

2) The Battle for the Golden Boot- the LSU-Arkansas game

3) The Magnolia Bowl- the LSU-Ole Miss game.

Be on the lookout for other fabricated rivalries in the future like the Battle for the Platinum Overalls: the LSU-Mississippi State game.

Real rivalries don’t always need a name and a trophy. LSU fans are well aware the pest that Ole Miss has been to them in recent years and it would make the Rebels’ season to beat LSU just about every year. No need to try and dress this thing up.

Other fun facts for this weekend:

LSU will try for win No. 700 of its program’s history against Ole Miss. Only 11 other programs have won that many games.

This will be the first time since 1997 that Ole Miss has played at Tiger Stadium during the day.

Why does that sound familiar to LSU fans?? Because it was the week after LSU upset No. 1 Florida 28-21. LSU came out and followed up Gerry Dinardo’s biggest win with a crippling loss 36-21.

LSU’s win over Troy marked the 11th time in four seasons the Tigers have comeback in the fourth quarter to win under Les Miles.

The month of November has been very good to LSU. The Tigers are 20 for their last 22 in November games.

Houston Nutt’s last visit to Tiger Stadium was a win when his Arkansas Razorbacks beat LSU in a 50-48 triple OT thriller last season.

Prediction?... Pain

I didn’t like the LSU’s intensity exhibited by the team in last week’s game and the coaches did a poor job of preparing the players.

Maybe it was a one week brain fart and in light of it the Tigers will come out more focused this week, but inconsistency still runs amuck in the offense and defense in Baton Rouge. Ole Miss is not a pushover and even when they are, they’ll play the Tigers tough, it’s just the nature of the rivalry lately.

When it comes down to it, I like Ole Miss’s offense to put up more points than LSU’s offense. It’s plain and simple and a pretty disappointing senior day for the Tigers.

Ole Miss 34 LSU 28