Road Trip: Founders Day 2010

It's March 26-28 this year. Georgia will be playing our baseball team in Starkville that weekend. I believe all of the normal golf and crawfish festivities will be on again. Anyone planning on going?

Also, anyone got any tickets for sale (or know someone that's selling) for the Auburn @ MSU basketball game on Feb 13? John and I will be in Starkville and for a reasonable price would like to go to the game.

College Pick'em 2009

It's that time again. I sent out invites this morning, but please feel free to forward the invite to anyone I missed or your other friends. Pre-season predictions are welcome. And if Ben sets up his money league I'm sure he'll post the info here.

Dixon Arrested

From ESPN.com:

It's not the kind of start to the week Dan Mullen or anybody at Mississippi State would have wanted, especially with SEC media days approaching.

But star running back Anthony Dixon was arrested over the weekend.

Sweet! Sounds like we're off to a great start.

Ole Miss Train Wreck Article

Article from Paul Finebaum at The Mobile Press-Register about the hype around Ole Miss this year.

Under the Lights with Mississippi State Football

From mstateathletics.com:

In April, a camera crew from Fox Sports spent nearly a week behind-the-scenes with Mississippi State head football coach Dan Mullen and the Bulldog football team leading up to the Maroon-White Game and Super Bulldog Weekend. The finished product can be seen today as the show – “Under the Lights with Mississippi State Football” – will premiere at 2:30 p.m. (CT) on SportSouth.

Looks like they will also play on the mstateathletics.com at some point, but doesn't specify when.

James = Ninja; John = Cheater

I had almost forgotten how much of an athlete I am. Today I pulled up my YouTube account to check out some account settings for something work related. Anyway, the only video in my account is the Dizzy Bat race from a minor league baseball game back in September 2007. I know most of you have already seen it, but damn I'm fast and it's always a good laugh to watch again

Once again, as mentioned in John Should Be Banned From Laser Tag...John is a dirty cheater. Look how many times he picks up his bat and he even fell down in front of me to trip me up. No amount of beauty cream will help John in a foot race against me.

Time Waster: NCAA Rules Test

Read about the NCAA rules test for coaches on The Blog last night.

I didn't actually take the time to do this yet so I don't have a score to share, but let's assume I'd fail.  You can access the test directly at http://bit.ly/pXcNm 

Share your scores.

Here we go Bulldogs...

As football season is getting closer here are a couple of links:

• Looks like we've got a signee in some trouble.  Read about it on Kyle's blog at clarionledger.com.
• New TV info for SEC games at al.com.  

Gradulate the Gators

Check out this remix video on deepsouthsports.net.  The original video, which is linked in the post, is even better.

Stream the MSU game while you "work" this afternoon

NCAA March Madness on Demand Video Player

NCAA Tourney Brackets

Since comments aren't working most of the time I want to point out that Ryder put up some bracket info a few posts ago.  His is $20 and sounds like they have quite a few peeps already.  Go win some big money.

If you want to go the free route join Sean's league on Yahoo.  If that link doesn't work for you it's:

Group ID#: 43523

Password: robinhood

Go DAWGS!

Starkville Trip Wrap Up

Some random thoughts and comments from our trip to Starkville last weekend:

• The alumni events would be a lot cooler if they served alcohol (at least at the banquet portion...maybe not so much at the Saturday 8 AM events).
• You should check out the new Templeton Athletic Academic Center on your next trip.  It's really nice.
• Everyone seems really excited about our new coach.  He was entertaining when he addressed the alumni association as well.  One of the questions Mullen fielded from the audience was along the lines of, "...anyway you could get Tebow to come with you to MSU..."
• The Rock Bottom bar needs to do something about the lack of running water in the bathroom.
• What is the red stuff splattered on the walls in the bathroom at Up Your Alley?  Looks like a crime scene in there.
• As John already mentioned, why would you stand around on the street (at both of the bars mentioned in the last two bullets) when The Grill is sitting empty 1 block away?  Kids these days.
• The Mossy Oak store in West Point is not as cool as I remember it. 
• Speaking of kids these days; some students ended up drinking at our table and we quickly figured out we were all from the Coast.  So they started running through the name game to see if we knew any of the same people and it went something like this:
  Girl: Do you know Person X?
  Us: No
  Girl: Do you know Person Y?
  Us: No
  Girl: Do you know Person Z?
  Us: Look, we're a little bit older than yall.
  Girl: When did you graduate high school?  Like 2000 or 2001?
  Us: Try 92, 96 and 96 (Curtis was with us)
  Girl: Oh
• You know how much John loves people.  I'm amazed he's so dang friendly after he gets drunk.  John ended up going to eat dinner with two of the kids from the last bullet point minutes after that conversation.  When he got back I asked if he even knew their names...he did not.
• Some things never get old.  One of the kids from the Coast left her camera on the table and left the bar.  Curtis went ahead and took a couple pics of his rat brain so she'd have something to ponder the next day.  We did eventually find the girl and return her camera...she was ecstatic that we returned it.  Too bad she didn't know it was tainted.
• You should get involved with your local MSU alumni if you're not already.  Sometimes it's hard for John and I to drink by ourselves at the game watches and I'm sure you've got officers near you that feel the same way.  And if you don't have a chapter...start one...you'll be the president.

MSU Coach

From MStateAthletics.com:

December 10, 2008

STARKVILLE, Miss. – The Mississippi State athletic department has announced plans to introduce its 32nd head football coach on Thursday, December 11. The initial event will be held at 10 a.m. in the Templeton Athletic Academic Center.  Doors will open at 9 a.m.

 

The fan event will feature the new head coach, interim president Dr. Roy Ruby and director of athletics Greg Byrne, and will be followed by a press conference.

 

After the Starkville event, Byrne and the new head coach will are tentatively scheduled to attend events around the state of Mississippi, and those plans will be announced when finalized.

Sounds like ESPN and all of the bloggers agree that it's going to be Dan Mullen, the offensive coordinator from Florida.  Sounds good to me...anyone have any interesting insight or problems with that?

Vandy Trip Wrap-Up

We had a really good trip down to Starkville over the weekend.  Here are some of my notes:

• Ran up a ~$500 tab at The Grill Friday night.  Even better than that...JT picked it up.  What a guy!
• Sweet Tea Vodka is good...no...actually it's awesome.  Thanks Lukey and Vanessa for bringing down your stash.  Shay, next time you mix one up remember to use half water.  And thanks to this drink we actually ran out of bottled water before we ran out of beer at the tailgate.
• Had a nice setup in The Junction for tailgating.  Big shout out to Devin for taking care of the cooking duties.  Although we didn't get any Luther Burgers, Devin did hook us up with some of his Deebo's Delight burgers.
• Potato salad from Bulldog Deli is still like ambrosia.
  
• Pool + JT + Nunnrey = lots o' water displacement
• Devin really is a dirty Mexican.  After digging around in the mud to try and find Vanessa's shoes (walking back to get truck after tailgate), he bathed in the water fountain in front of the Comfort Suites.
• Pork chop and gravy biscuit from Hardee's hits the spot pretty well in the morning while you're hungover.
• JT and I took a tour of the Little Brown Crackhouse.  It's still pretty much the same, but the flooring in the kitchen has been replaced and they have a dishwashing machine now (that's BS).  Oh yeah, and it smelled like hippies lived there.  And I was a little disappointed that there was nobody over there drinking on a Friday night of a home game.
• That's what Deebo loves about college girls, man.  He gets older, they stay the same age.

Definitely had a great time and I always enjoy getting back together with the crew.  We should try to make it a yearly thing to make it out to at least one home game.

Vandy Game Plans

As mentioned back in July some of us are headed to the Vandy game at MSU on October 11. If you haven't already made your plans you've still got time.

• Shey and I should get to Starkville sometime mid-Friday afternoon (coming from Jackson).


• JT, Lisa, Nunnrey, Kaci are flying into Memphis with a pitstop in Tunica Thursday night, and they will get up to Starkville on Friday.


• I now have confirmation that Luke and Vanessa will be West Bound and Down with some of Lukey's sweet tea vodka arriving sometime Friday.


• Deebo should be headed out as well.


• I've got reports that Crunk Craig and wife are gonna come hang out as well.

We will be working out some tailgating details in the coming days. I'm hoping Nunnrey will cook us up some of his Luther Burgers.

College Pick'em

College football is upon us. As I'm checking in on our annual college pick'em over at Yahoo! Sports I notice the member list is looking a wee bit short. Some of our usual suspects have not yet signed up. I've sent invites to all of the faithful Backtoms contributors plus a host of others.

It's time for you to get on the horn and get the rest of our peeps to sign up. As usual, it's open to all if you want to invite your punk ace co-workers or friends that want to talk smack. If you need me to invite you again send me an email or post a comment and I'll hook you up.

I'm looking forward to the 2008 pre-season predictions. I can't remember who did it last year, but I'd be willing to bet that it will be safe to say Nunnrey will forget to make the majority of his picks again this season.

And don't forget Ryder has a money league as well. He's posted the information on the message board on the Phatboys league.

Ouch

Check out the SEC win/loss records.

Matt Jones = Dummy

So your career hasn't panned out like you thought it would. Why you wanna get caught with 6 grams of cocaine? Read about it here.

Couldn't he have just went to the topless haircut place and had a good time legally?

Skyboxin'

Yet another sporting event ruined.

Nunnrey took us to the Super Bowl this year, so watching it on TV in the future will be a let down. I got to take in a U. Texas football game in a skybox in '99 which has basically soured me on cheap seats at college football games. Now James hauled me over to a box for a Round Rock Express game. I guess minor league ball is ruined for me now too.