The top of the front page of The Daily Reveille has said one thing on the Friday before the Ole Miss vs. LSU football game for quite some time.
It’s plain. It’s simple. It’s straight to the point. And it’s awesome.
It reads like this: Geaux to hell, Ole Miss.
There’s a reason for that.
Ole Miss is LSU’s fiercest rival. You can debate Alabama or Arkansas or Florida as the Tigers’ biggest rival, but it’s Ole Miss.
I despise Ole Miss and everything it stands for.
And I really hate Hotty Toddy. It’s an awful cheer. I’d rather hear Pig Sooie on repeat for a full week than Hotty Toddy one time.
It’s not just that it isn’t pleasing to the ears. It’s simply that the cheer is associated with Ole Miss.
The fact that the best thing to come out of Ole Miss (the attempt to get Admiral Ackbar to be their mascot) was an epic failure is really funny.
Now they have some sort of a black bear as a mascot apparently. A black bear that looks like a mix of Smokey the Bear and Yogi with a little bit of Winnie the Pooh. Awesome mascot y’all have over there.
Sure, LSU hasn’t come out of this football game victorious since 2007 when the Tigers won, 41-24.
In 2008, the Tigers suffered a 31-13 home loss to the Rebels, possibly the worst time I’ve ever had in Tiger Stadium.
Then last year was the 25-23 loss in Oxford. Do I even need to talk about it, or does “clock blunder” ring a bell? I think I’ve said enough.
I need some type of revenge to hang my hat on. I hate losing to Ole Miss.
There’s only one thing I hate more than losing to Ole Miss, and that’s its coach, Houston Nutt.
Something that gets lost with all the hoopla surrounding this Ole Miss game is the simple fact that Nutt has beaten LSU for three straight years with two different teams.
The past two seasons it was with Ole Miss. But let’s not forget 2007, the year LSU won the national championship. In the Tigers’ last regular season game, Nutt’s Arkansas team came into Death Valley and defeated LSU, 50-48, in triple overtime.
That means for me and my fellow seniors, we have a team that has yet to crack that pesky Nutt.
A lot is riding on this game. An LSU victory keeps their BCS bowl game hopes alive. A loss would all but shatter those aspirations.
So LSU football seniors, this is it: your and my last game as students in Tiger Stadium. Our last game as freshmen didn’t end so well at the hand of Nutt’s Arkansas team.
This year, send us out with a victory. Only once in the past three years has LSU won on senior day. End that trend on Saturday afternoon in Tiger Stadium.
I can’t walk out of the stadium on Saturday with a loss. I just can’t. I will postpone my graduation until December if that happens to ensure my last game in Death Valley isn’t a loss.
OK, that’s hyperbole, but you get where I am going with this. A loss to Ole Miss and Houston Nutt is unacceptable in my eyes. It has got to end this year.
Geaux to hell, Ole Miss.
Andy Schwehm is a 21-year-old English and psychology senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_ASchwehm.
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Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]