Jackson Free Press

The University of Mississippi is the highest ranked two-loss team in the nation in both polls. The team is No. 12 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 Poll and No. 13 in the latest USA Today Coaches Poll.

Florida State, ranked No. 14 in the AP and No. 16 in the Coaches, is the next two-loss team in the rankings. The University of Oklahoma, the third best two-loss team, is ranked No. 19 in the AP and No. 20 in Coaches.

The Rebels’ road opponent this weekend, the University of Arkansas, is the last two-loss team ranked in both polls. The Razorbacks are ranked No. 22 in both the AP and Coaches polls.

Just like the Rebels, Arkansas boasts two quality losses, with defeats to the undefeated University of Alabama and Texas A&M University. UM has lost to Florida State and Alabama, with the Crimson Tide still undefeated, and FSU with loses to the University of Louisville and the University of North Carolina.

Even with the two losses, the Rebels are still alive in the SEC. UM needs to win out and have Alabama lose twice along the way.

The good news is Alabama gets the University of Tennessee and Texas A&M in back-to-back weeks. The Tide must still face Louisiana State University and an improving Auburn University in the Iron Bowl at the end of the season.

Arkansas is part of a tough three-game stretch for the Rebels. UM to LSU next and hosts Auburn to close out October.

A nearly sure win against Georgia Southern University begins Nov. 05. If the Rebels don’t stumble their way out of October, a major showdown looms on Nov. 12 against Texas A&M.

UM finishes the season at defensive-minded but offensively challenged Vanderbilt University and in the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State University. That’s a tough stretch to close the season, but every team in the SEC faces a similar stretch at this point.

Lets just hope the Rebels did a better job with their two weeks to prepare for its game against Arkansas than MSU did with its two weeks before it played Auburn. The biggest story was Rebel quarterback Chad Kelly rushing the field during his brother’s high-school game back in Buffalo, N.Y.

It should be exciting when the Razorbacks and Rebels meet up.

Last year’s score was 53-52 and included overtime, a crazy fourth-and-25 lateral and a two-point conversion for the win. These teams have a history of playing some wild games when they get together.

Recently, Arkansas has gotten the better of UM in this series. The Razorbacks have won four of the last six and seven of the last 11 meetings.

While the Razorbacks haven’t beat MSU the last four years, they have been in the heads of the Rebels, including a 30-0 victory in 2014.

Against LSU, the Rebels are 4-4 in its last eight …

Rarely do you see a game turn as quickly and suddenly as the game between Mississippi State University and Auburn University on Saturday, Oct. 8. It looked like the Bulldogs would take advantage of their two weeks to prepare for the Tigers.

Auburn’s first drive ended when MSU intercepted a tipped pass. One might think that is where the game turned, but it wasn’t until after the Bulldogs went on offense that the Tigers began their stride.

Auburn forced MSU to try a field goal after that interception, and the kicking game came up lame for head coach Dan Mullen. Another missed field goal, after a missed field goal lost the University of South Alabama game, turned this game.

In their next three drives, the Tigers went nine plays for 80 yards, 12 plays for 79 yards and 12 plays for 60 yards. All three drives resulted in Auburn touchdowns to build a 21-0 lead.

Here is how the rest of the Bulldogs’ drives went for the first half: three plays and punt, seven plays and a lost fumble, three plays and a lost fumble, three plays and punt, six plays and punt, one play and a lost fumble for an Auburn touchdown, and one play at the end of the half.

Auburn had one more touchdown drive before the sack-fumble by the Bulldogs. At the half, the Tigers led 35-0, and it was really all they would need for the rest of the game.

MSU, with two weeks to prepare, couldn’t tackle, stop the run or cover receivers, and it didn’t look like the Bulldogs knew where to line up at times on defense. Auburn also whipped the Bulldogs’ offensive line most of the game on defense.

The Tigers got pressure with their front four on the defense as the five Bulldogs offensive lineman struggled to keep a clean pocket. MSU’s play-calling was questionable at best throughout most of the first half.

Bulldogs quarterback Nick Fitzgerald didn’t seem to have anything going for him against Auburn. His throws were poor, by and large, and when he did have a good throw, the receiver would end up dropping it.

MSU wide receiver Fred Ross had a game to forget. Ross fumbled a couple of punts, which the Bulldogs recovered, and he might have dropped more passes in this game than he has during his entire college career.

The Bulldogs looked like they were just going through the motions on Saturday, and the Tigers took them behind the woodshed for their lack of focus. Auburn racked up 432 yards on offense and didn’t do much in the second half, and the Tigers limited MSU to just 298 yards on offense.

Auburn was six for 13 on third downs and averaged 11.3 yards per pass and 4.1 yards per rush. The statistics don’t tell the full story since Auburn was so far out in front that they really …

After the Washington Post released a 2005 video recording of Donald Trump and Billy Bush having a lewd conversation about permissible ways to treat women, several former Trump supporters backed away from their endorsements. Among these politicians were Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and two Alabama members of Congress.

Mississippi political leaders, however, did not back off their endorsements. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves did tweet his disapproval with Trump's remarks on Oct. 8.

"As a dad of girls, @realdonaldtrump's remarks on video are reprehensible and outside the bounds of decency. I hope his apology is sincere," Reeves tweeted on Oct. 8.

Trump issued an apology in a short video later, but defended the discussion as "locker room talk" in the second presidential debate on Sunday.

The Mississippi Democratic Party released a statement in response to Trump's views on sexual assault last Friday.

"It was revealed this afternoon that the Republican presidential nominee continues to hold astonishing views about how he can get away with sexual assault. Yet, not a single Republican statewide or legislative leader has called his actions deplorable," the statement says. "America deserves better leadership than this, and voters should remember his words when they vote on November 8th."

Following the debate, Gov. Phil Bryant did not back off his endorsement of Trump, and on Facebook, he said issues like repealing Obamacare and appointing judges to the U.S. Supreme Court were at stake in the election.

"Tonight, Donald Trump focused on issues important to the American people -- securing our borders, rebuilding our economy and repealing and replacing Obamacare. Bill Clinton was correct when he called it the craziest thing in the world. It was good to see most of this debate centered on things that are important to Americans," Bryant said in a Facebook post on Sunday. "Hillary Clinton spent the evening proposing the same policies that have failed for 30 years, including appointing liberal judges to the Supreme Court who would advance the Left's agenda rather than respect the Constitution. Most conservatives understand this election is about the United States Supreme Court and the future of our country."

Thus far, no state political leaders who formally endorsed Trump have swayed in their support of the Republican presidential candidate. The deadline for Mississippians to register to vote was on Saturday.

One-sided games are not unusual in college football. Nearly every season has a few games where the score gets lopsided in favor of one team.

In 1916, one of the biggest blowouts in college football took place, and today is the 100th anniversary of that mauling. The game involved the Georgia Institute of Technology and Cumberland College.

Georgia Tech rolled to an amazing 222-0 win over Cumberland. The Yellow Jackets scored 63 points in the first quarter alone.

But why did Georgia Tech pour it on Cumberland? And why was the game so one-sided?

The second question is easier to answer than the first. Cumberland dissolved its football team in 1915 but failed to properly notify Georgia Tech that it was cancelling the game.

Then-head coach of the Yellow Jackets John Heisman threatened to sue Cumberland for $3,000, roughly $65,000 in today’s dollars, if the tiny college from Lebanon, Tenn., cancelled the game.

Instead, a student manager put together a team of 13 players that consisted mostly of fraternity brothers to head to Atlanta and fulfill the contract obligations.

The myth of why Heisman wanted to play the game so badly was that Cumberland beat the Yellow Jacket’s baseball team, which Heisman also coached, 22-0 in the spring of 1915. He even threw in $500 (worth about $11,000 in today’s dollars) and paid the travel expenses for the Cumberland team he was about to slaughter.

Georgia Tech scored on its first play of the game, and Cumberland fumbled on its first play, which the Yellow Jackets recovered for a score. That was how the matchup went—Georgia Tech would need only one to three plays to score and forced Cumberland into 15 turnovers.

The Yellow Jackets led 126-0 at halftime. Heisman showed some mercy, allowing the teams to play the third and fourth quarters at 12 minutes instead of the normal 15 minutes.

Georgia Tech scored on every single one of its possessions, tallying 32 touchdowns. Cumberland had six interceptions, nine fumbles and zero first downs.

The Yellow Jackets racked up 501 yards of total offense on just 29 offensive plays with 20 first downs. Cumberland finished with negative-28 yards, and the team’s main offensive highlight was a 10-yard pass completion on a fourth-and-22 play.

Cumberland has shuttered its football program five times at various points, despite being a college-football powerhouse at one point. In 1903, the team finished with a 6-1-1 record after a spectacular run of beating the University of Alabama, Tulane University and Louisiana State University by a combined 113-0 score in the span of six days. Cumberland’s only loss was a 6-0 defeat at the hands of Sewanee, and its lone tie came in an 11-11 game against Clemson.

That season, Cumberland met Clemson University in the championship game of the former Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which contained teams that later formed the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference. Cumberland now …

Community leaders will hold a press conference at the Mississippi State Capitol next week to call on Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to issue an apology to Mississippians during “Racial Reconciliation Month”.

They are asking Gov. Bryant to apologize for his refusal to back the removal of the Confederate symbol from the Mississippi flag, and for his declaration of the month of April as "Confederate Heritage Month," a press release says.

Duvalier Malone, a Mississippi native, who was a part of the Take It Down America movement, which culminated in a rally in Washington, DC to bring awareness to the Mississippi state flag, is helping to organize the press conference next Thursday, October 13 at the Capitol at 11 a.m.

In order for any reconciliation to take place, the Governor and the state of Mississippi must first join the rest of America in the denunciation of the Confederate emblem, and all that it stands for, Malone said in a press release. Malone has spoken on how hate crimes link the Confederate symbol to the swastika, the emblem of Nazi Germany.

“It's time for us to recognize that although the Confederate symbol and the Nazi symbol originate from different countries," he said in a press release. "They are equals in terms of hate, intolerance and bigotry.”