When you think of Ole Miss you think of three things…..the
epicenter of the good ole deep south, The Grove (and all it’s glory), and The
Mannings.
Well, most guys think about those things. Most women in America think of the school
that poor adopted kid went to in that really sad, touching movie.
Back to the guy stuff….
Born Elisha Archibald Manning III, he was the starting QB at
Ole Miss from 1968-1970 where he finished 4th and 3rd in
Heisman balloting in his junior and senior seasons before the Saints selected
him as the #2 overall pick in the NFL draft.
The speed limit on campus in Oxford is 18 mph, his jersey number, in
honor of him. He essentially lived out
his entire career, collegiate and professional, as a great player on bad teams. Archie Manning is a cultural icon in both the
state of Mississippi and the state of Louisiana.
The one thing Archie didn’t pass? His name.
How on earth could he father three boys and not pass that name on one
more generation?
One of those of those boys went to Tennessee, and he could
play a little football, but the other two went to Ole Miss. Cooper, his oldest, suffered from a spinal
condition just as he was arriving on campus.
Eli, his youngest, brought Ole Miss football back to relative
success. He was rewarded for taking Ole
Miss to the Cotton Bowl with the Maxwell Award, the Johnny Unitas Award and a
third place finish in the ’03 Heisman balloting…..and the #1 overall draft pick
in the NFL draft.
Wait. Back it up a
bit….Eli’s birth name is Elisha Nelson Manning.
It was the Archibald part that his father didn’t want to hand down? That’s even crazier.
The glory years of the program were the late-50s/early-60s
under John Vaught, not to be confused with John Voight – who also gave us something
of importance. They claimed the National
Championship in 1959, 1960, and 1962 and six SEC titles (’47, ’54, ’55, ’60,
’62, ’63).
Interestingly, the ’59 squad has widely been considered one
of the best teams of the mid-century but they didn’t win the SEC title that
season (Georgia did). They slipped
against LSU in Baton Rouge, losing 7-3, but avenged the loss in the Sugar Bowl
by beating the Tigers 21-0 in a rematch to end the season.
During Vaught’s 24 years at the helm of the program he
coached 26 All-Americans, including four players who finished in the top five
of the Heisman balloting (Charlie Conerly ’47, Charlie Flowers ’59, Jake Gibbs
’60, and Manning ’69 & ’70). He is
the 4th winningest coach in SEC history behind only Bear Bryant, Lou
Holtz, and Vince Dooley. And you had
never heard of him until three paragraphs ago – we have much to learn about the
deep history of the SEC.
The 70s, 80s, and 90s were, in general, pretty forgettable
for Rebel fans. In the late 90s, when
Tommy Tubberville left Oxford for Auburn, they hired David Cutcliffe (of Peyton
Manning fame – he was the OC at Tennessee when Manning was there). Cutcliff turned things around, along with
Eli, but he went 4-7 the year after Eli left and was fired. He it was his first losing season in Oxford.
The Rebels have been through a whirlwind of coaches in
recent years but none as exciting or enthusiastic or hard to understand as Ed
Orgeron.
How do you not go buy a car right now?
Coach O was a recruiting-aholic and stocked up the USC
Trojans roster leading up to their historic mid-2000s run.
Coach O was apparently much more exciting
than he was good a coaching a football team and was fired at the end of 2007
after 3 seasons at the helm. He was
replaced by Houston Nutt who came over from Arkansas, looked like a crazy
person, and despite a strong 2008 season, was gone after four seasons to be
replaced by new HC Hugh Freeze.
The Rebels play their games at Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium,
which was opened in 1915 and most recently renovated in 2002. It holds just over 60,000 and holds little to
no aura when compared to the majority of SEC home fields.
What the Rebels do have that no other school in the country
has, is the tailgating mecca that is The Grove.
Just over 10 acres of shade trees and tents – but this isn’t a bunch of
coolers in the back of a truck, these set ups would make Martha Stewart
proud. Linens, silver, hors d’oeuvres,
chandeliers. Yeah, this is fancy pants
tailgating. The going phrase around
Oxford is, “We may not win every game, but we never lost a party.”
Ole Miss, like most SEC schools, is very Greek – sororities and
frats are what everyone does, which is
something that Ags are going to have to
get adjusted to. The Grove helps take
this to another level. T-shirts and flip
flops aren’t going to get it done…..make sure your chinos are ironed, your loafers
are clean, and your tie is straight. And
this is their war-cry:
Hotty Toddy, Gosh almighty
Who the hell are we, Hey!
Flim Flam, Bim Bam
OLE MISS BY DAMN!
Who the hell are we, Hey!
Flim Flam, Bim Bam
OLE MISS BY DAMN!
That isn’t their only song, they have many, mostly with some
reference to Dixie. The school no longer
allows them to play Pride of the South
at football games due to the student’s unwillingness to stop using the phrase “The
South will rise again” in the song.
Along those same lines, the famous mascot, Colonel Reb, was
replaced in 2010 by Rebel Black Bear in an effort by the administration to continue
to distance itself from its ties to the antebellum era . Rumor has it that he still makes appearances
in The Grove on game day. We’ll have to
watch for photos.
Ole Miss is a road trip that has been on my Bucket List for
years and I’m really excited to catch a game in Oxford in the next couple of
years.
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