Mississippi, Joe Moorhead, John Cohen discussed on The Paul Finebaum Show

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

Never lived in Mississippi, but I've been here a lot. I grew up literally on the line for I know the importance of oldness and how much of the lane kiffin the lane train show. How does that affect what happens here just in terms of perception? Well, in reality, Paul, it's like living in two different worlds. Right. You know, you have the Mississippi state world where everything's everybody's all aboard the pirate ship and then just a short two hour drive to the north you have where everybody's all aboard the line train, but they really don't mix to me during the regular season until we get to that fateful week in November, every single year. But when we get to that week, those sparks fly. Yeah, I mean, they're hired at the same time too and lane has two wins in the egg bowl. It's something that people have circled here. Even if leach goes out and wins 8, 9, ten games, and he has a loss in that egg. Well, that's something that people are going to remember. And three to start Deadpool is not something that people here treat lightly. Yeah, it just seems, because I mean, I think it's pretty established. I covered the iron ball. I made a well, I don't know if I made a career. Oh, I guess I did. But I think this is much nastier today than the I don't think the iron ball is even nasty anymore. Sabin has ruined the iron bowl. I mean, it's not even, yeah, there's some Epic Games. We all know, but this thing is just, I mean, I don't know if I want to be in the same within the same time zone as the egg bow on Thanksgiving. We say it every year, no matter the record of the two teams. You have to go in thinking it's 50 50, no matter who wants the real determining factor is who shows up that day and wants to win worse in every egg bowl. That's the way it's been and I grew up here. That's the way it's been all 21 years of my life. And I'm new to it. I mean, I'm from Indiana originally. I moved down here last August and end right away. I mean, that's something that I talk about that people always mention is the Ebola. It matters. I grew up just outside Chicago where people are rooting for the bulls, the White Sox cubs rivalry is what it is. I mean, there's no professional team here. It's old miss or Mississippi state. And it's going to matter, even if you're no one 12 in a season, they're going to remember that one game that you lost in November. So this year, in the egg bowl, it's an Oxford apologize for me. Me not being a Magnolia state official. I mean, I should know that. If it doesn't go well, meaning a loss. Does that take away from everything else? Is it that important? To the fan base. Yes. To the administration, the athletic department, I'm not as sure. But to the fan base, absolutely. When Joe moorhead was a coach at this team, I specifically remember people saying, yeah, they might not have won as many games as we delight during the regular season, but they won the egg ball and that's the big one that matters to this fan base. Yeah, and I mean, leech got a two year extension. You know, this past off season. I think he's got the support of John Cohen, the athletic director here, and some others around the athletic department, some donors and things like that. But like you said, I mean, it's hard when the egg bowl is the last game of the season for it to not leave some kind of a sour taste when you go into the off season. Of course, we missed a year because of COVID, but the last time I sat here about this time, Joe moorhead was sitting across from me and I will tell you it was one of the more forgettable injuries of my life. It was very difficult. It was, it was, it wasn't contentious, it was just awkward, because everyone knew he was on short time. Well, and you know, it's funny that you mentioned that because I know for certain there are definitely a lot of fans that would like to forget the Joe Moore heads on your ear. At Mississippi state. Yeah, no, and Paul, you've had my good friend, Ben Portner, and a couple times cover South Carolina now. He was here covering more. We went to Indiana together. So I remember talking to him a lot while he was here covering state. And it was just kind of interesting because you see them get those big wins. Everyone remembers that bowl with the dog urinating celebration. Everyone remembers that. And it's so weird that it was so certain that moorhead was going to be gone. It was really weird tenure that he had here. And like you said, I really forgettable one. Yeah, and I think that one egg bowl, it's got sweeped out and swept out excuse me. I'm just a I was homeschooled. And then more hit loses the bowl game, right? And he's gone. Well, it was the real. Yeah. And the real nail on the coffin was what happened leading up to the ball game. Garrett Schrader was actually the quarterback of that team and you see what he's doing at Syracuse now. There were good players on that team. It was just a matter of an athletic, the athletic department saw it too of changes needed to be made at the top. Long term it was in the solution. It was never going to be. No, and I think those things happen and I remember when leitch got the job, I mean, there was quite a buzz, and then was it just winning the press conference. I think he's obviously shown guys that he's won more than the press conference. Yeah, I think people knew right away that he was going to bring the humor and things like that to those press conferences, like you mentioned, but at the end of the day, I think people saw, as I mentioned earlier, that's a guy that had been his previous stops for about a decade or so each place. That's what Mississippi state really needed. I think they saw that. The question was, was the array going to work in the SEC? Obviously, you come out, you break all the records in that first game against LSU. You beat the defending champs, but then you go on from there. He had your struggles at the end of year one. You had some struggles in year two, but there seems to be some consistency. Obviously having a guy like Will Rogers who's been here now is third season running the show helps. But the recruiting is there with quarterbacks too. There's belief that it can continue. Before you go, leech will be here in a minute. Obviously we know the record against lane, there's been struggles against Pittman two. How big is tomorrow? It's huge for this team because I think we've already passed one turning point for this Mississippi state team in this season and that was at LSU. They go into that game and there's not many times that Mississippi state is going to go into Baton Rouge favored by a lot of people to win. So I think on the flip side of that coin, it's not many times you host, you know, a Texas a and M here, and then an Arkansas team here that's your favored to win.

Coming up next