Good morning. It’s a Saturday in October and you know what that means: the Halloween candy aisle at your local supermarket is mobbed.
It also means it’s time for college football. I don’t mean to step on Darleen’s open thread thing, I just want to announce that there’s a game on this afternoon/evening (depending on your local time zone) that most PWers might be interested in.
It seems that Middle Tennessee State University, located in Murfreesboro, actually has a football team — called (snicker) the Blue Raiders. My wife says it’s even beaten Georgia Tech but, well, that’s Georgia Tech. Anyway, today the MTSU football team is going to be in Starkville, Mississippi to be the designated main course at Mississippi State’s homecoming banquet — er, football game. MSU is my wife’s current alma mater and is undefeated this season, having climbed from an unranked start into the middle the various Top 25 lists and apparently to #12 on the BCS rankings (FWIW).
The game starts at 6:00 pm Central, and will be televised on ESPN2. It occurred to me that even those PWers who hold no love for the Bulldogs might not mind watching the (snicker) Blue Raiders get mauled.
It’s gonna be fun.
The Blue (snicker) Raiders moniker refers to the Civil War Union thugs who defeated our boys in gray, those heroes who valiantly defended their homelands against Lincoln’s aggressions. Or so I’ve been told on occasion.
They also defeated SEC powerhouse Vanderbilt a few years back. Imagine that!
My wife’s Tennessee roots are so far up in the mountains of East Tennessee that you’d have to hunt around to find anyone whose ancestors sided with the Confederacy. Maybe the raiders in blue the middle-staters are complaining about came from there. Heh.
Since I can’t be in the stands with rotten tomatoes….. meh.
Miss. State used to be the Maroons. Why did they change to Bulldogs?
RE: Mountain Folk and the Civil War. My horse thief ancestors from either side of the TN/NC border stole horses from both sides and sold them back to the highest bidder. When there weren’t horses around they rounded up deserters from either side as well.
PLEASE stick it to the Blue Raiders!
Middy, unless the change happened in the era of Bugs Bunny cartoons and his taunt, “What a maroon,” I am bereft of clues.
http://www.hailstate.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=926236
The Bulldog (MSU Live Mascot)
Mississippi State University athletic teams are called Bulldogs, a name earned and maintained over the decades by the tough, tenacious play of student-athletes wearing the Maroon and White. The official school mascot is an American Kennel Club registered English Bulldog, given the inherited title of ‘Bully’.
As with most universities, State teams answered to different nicknames through the years. The first squads representing Mississippi A&M College were proud to be called Aggies, and when the school officially became Mississippi State College in 1932 the nickname Maroons, for State’s uniform color, gained prominence. Bulldogs became the official title for State teams in 1961, not long after State College was granted university status. Yet references to school teams and athletes as Bulldogs actually go back to early in the century, and this nickname was used almost interchangably with both Aggies and Maroons, since at least 1905.
On November 30 of that year the A&M football team shut out their arch-rivals from the University of Mississippi 11-0 in Jackson, Miss. The campus newspaper, The Reflector, reported: “After the game, filled with that emotion that accompanies every great victory, there was nothing left for the cadets to do but to complete the great victory by showing sympathy for the dead athletic spirit of the University, by having a military funeral parade.
“A coffin was secured, decorated with University colors and a bulldog pup placed on top. It was then placed on the shoulders of a dozen cadets, and the procession started down Capitol Street, preceded by the brass band playing a very pathetic funeral march.”
Other newspaper reports of the victory commented on the ‘bulldog’ style of play by the A&M eleven, and the Bulldog was soon publicly accepted as a school athletic symbol. Accounts of a 1926 pep rally in Meridian, Miss., had another bulldog parading with students.
Use as an official game mascot began in 1935 when coach Major Ralph Sasse, on ‘orders’ from his team, went to Memphis, Tenn., to select a bulldog. Ptolemy, a gift of the Edgar Webster family, was chosen and the Bulldogs promptly defeated Alabama 20-7.
A litter-mate of Ptolemy became the first mascot called ‘Bully’ shortly after Sasse’s team beat mighty Army 13-7 at West Point that same year, perhaps the greatest victory in MSU football history. But Bully I earned other fame the hard way, in 1939 when a campus bus cut short his career.
Days of campus mourning followed, as Bully lay in state in a glass coffin. A half-mile funeral procession accompanied by the the Famous Maroon Band and three ROTC battalions went to Scott Field where Bully was buried under the bench at the 50-yard line. Even LIFE Magazine covered to the event. Other Bullys have since been buried by campus dorms, fraternity houses, and also at the football stadium.
For years Bully was a target for kidnappers, the last incident occuring prior to the 1974 State-Ole Miss game. The Bulldog team won anyway, 31-13. While early Bullys once roamed campus freely or lived in fraternities, today the official university mascot is housed at the College of Veterinary Medicine when not on duty at State home football games. For all their fierce appearance and reputation, today’s mascot bulldogs are good-natured, friendly animals and favorites with children.
A student wearing a Bulldog suit, also answering to Bully, is part of the MSU cheerleading team and assists in stiring up State spirit at games and pep rallies.
Pssssh. Research is for people who care about getting it right. :rolls eyes:
But knowing is half the battle. GI JOE said so.
Good luck, McGehee!
We will be here. Well, not technically. Sooners vs. Jayhawks on FNS at 6:00 pm.
I’ll say this: Bully has got to be happier than his Georgia counterpart. Being named “Uga” (pronounced “ugga”) can’t be great for a bulldog’s self-image.
here .
Stupid html
Have fun, leigh.
…has OU played Alabama, or will they? Mississippi State goes to Tuscaloosa next week.
Wrong conference. Here’s the rest of the schedule before the bowl games:
10/20/12 KANS
10/27/12 NOTRE
11/3/12 @IOWST
11/10/12 BAY
11/17/12 @WVIRG
11/24/12 OKLST
12/1/12 @TCU
Read more: http://newsok.com/sports/ou#ixzz29rqV98NQ
Oh, there can be cross-conference games. Oh well — we’ll beat up on ‘Bama for you.
We apprectiate that.
That Nebraska game was something, but I’m glad it ended before State started scoring.
And Texas Tech!? Unranked a week ago, now they’re #17 — beating TCU in triple overtime. Dayum, but that would’ve been a game to see, on some other day.
Well, that was a disappointing first half. Hopefully Mullen will inspire them to do better.
Maybe State could hold on to win this after all.
Mississippi State 45, Middle Tennessee 3 with just over two minutes to play.
I am guardedly optimistic.
It did seem like in the second quarter State was playing under the influence of paella…
Good on ’em today, but better on ’em next week.
It was certainly a heart attack-inducing game for the Red Raiders and us long-suffering fans, but I’m glad we came out on top. Now it’s on to the Little Apple next week to play Kansas State, who destroyed West Virginia today.
Best of luck to the Red Raiders, Mike — and thanks for the good wishes for next week, sdferr.
I admit I’m feeling hungry for a heaping helping of crimson elephant.
And best of luck to the Bulldogs, McGehee. Time to go elephant hunting!
In the space of a week I have went from wondering if WVU had a real shot at a BCS game to wondering if we have a real shot at winning another game and going to a bowl period.
Worst. Defense. Ever.
I’ve sort of suffered the same dizzying changes with the Gators Bmoe, only in the opposite direction. I think they started the year barely inside the top 20 if inside at all, and now here they’re sitting at 2. Should be fun next week.
BMoe, you’ll feel better if you just haul an old couch out in the street and set it ablaze.
I would feel better if our defense didn’t look like a pick up team trying to figure out who was covering who on every play.
I am not kidding, I have never seen anything like this.
I know how you feel. My alma mater sucked for ages.
Meanwhile, Boomer and Sooner (the horses that pull the Sooner Schooner) are tuckered out from all those touchdowns tonight. Extra oats for them tonight.
[…] Okay, maybe I don’t want to jump ahead two weeks until tomorrow night, after the Mississippi State game. And the weekend after that MSU goes to Tuscaloosa to take on the #1 Crimson Tide. It would be fun […]