Ole Miss-Tennessee preview, er, sorta

Your morals and personal code aren’t written down on a list and followed each day. They’re developed over time. Sometimes you don’t even know how you feel about a subject until a line in the sand is drawn and you have to pick a side. For me, that day is today. I have to pick who to cheer for in the Tennessee-Ole Miss football game.

Living in the South means that you have to pay attention to college football. If you have balls, I mean. I can’t be totally invested in college football for the following reasons:

1. The outcome of most games is easy to predict. The talent discrepancy between the haves and have-nots is the difference in 95% of the games.
2. There is no prevalent fantasy game that revolves around college football.
3. My alma mater, the University of Memphis, sucks.

Regardless, football is football and I watch. Since, as mentioned above, I live in the South and my alma mater sucks, I spend the majority of my time cheering against teams. It’s fun and it’s easy. My two favorite teams to hate are Tennessee and Ole Miss. But today, my plan of cheering against these guys is ruined. They play each other. What’s a half-hearted pessimist to do. Let’s break down the pros and cons of each school and figure out who in the hell to cheer for.

The Cities

Knoxville looks like a glorified truck stop. I hate it. I don’t know how it’s scientifically possible but everywhere you walk is up a hill. The only redeeming part of Knoxville is that I once saw a Krystal-eating contest there. This is both awesome and pathetic when talking about a city’s most redeeming quality.

Oxford, it’s quaint, it’s got some trees and Hardees, so yeah, it’s alright. I can see the value in this place, if, and only if, every Ole Miss graduate didn’t talk about Oxford like it was the location of God’s orgasm during creation.

Winner: Oxford

The Coaches

Lane Kiffin is a brash, arrogant SOB. However, as far as I can tell, he hasn’t done anything to deserve this. I’m pretty sure the only thing he’s done to date is get fired by Al Davis and be proud of losing games in a somewhat competitive fashion.

Houston Nutt is the ideal Ole Miss coach. He looks like the type of guy that would get shot by Dick Cheney while hunting, which is what Ole Miss fans are looking for.

Winner: Houston Nutt

The Teams

Tennessee players commit armed robbery with pellet guns.

Ole Miss players can’t read (see the last paragraph here) and steal from hotel rooms.

Winner: Lawyers

The Cheer

Rocky Top Tennessee is hands down the worst song to ever be created. I’d rather be stuck in the Branch Davidian Compound and be forced to hear “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” about 3,000 times before I hear Rocky Top again.

Hotty Toddy is a drunken rant. I can accept this. However, to hear the same drunken rant 272 times before you enter the football stadium is one too many. The good news is that you don’t have to hear the chant that much during the game since Ole Miss usually sucks and the fans have nothing to cheer for.

Winner: No one

The Fans

This is really what I care about. I don’t really want Tennessee or Ole Miss to lose because I care about the actual players or coaching staff. I’ve come into contact with too many of their fans and it brings me joy to think about these people experiencing loss.

Tennessee fans on the east side of the state are mostly hillbilly conservative clichés that bleed orange and white, drink moonshine, beat their wife, sleep with their cousin and vote for the white guy, er, Republican. (I can’t really vouch for any of this since I’ve been to Knoxville a total of 3 times and hung out with friends from the suburbs, but I don’t mind writing about stereotypes.) Tennessee fans here in Memphis drive me nuts. Most of them attended Tennessee for 1-2 semesters, drank a lot of beer, failed their classes and had their parents make them come home. They then went to the University of Memphis but proudly remain UT fans, you know, cause they spent a total of 4 months there and all. Drives me nuts. Then again, you have these other people who, for some unbeknownst reason, cheer for Tennessee in football and then the University of Memphis in basketball. They’re frontrunners. I can’t stand this either. Look buddy, pick a school and cheer for them. It’s not that hard. People don’t cheer for Ohio State basketball and Michigan football. Ugh.

Ole Miss males all have haircuts like this. It’s amazing. Seriously, go to Oxford on a Saturday and you’ll see 10,000 20-40 year old dudes with this haircut. It’s almost like they are genetically predetermined to go to Ole Miss. These guys generally drink way too much, invented date-rape, wear shirts and ties to football games and vote for the white guy, er, Republican. They hate every other SEC school and constantly have an inflated sense of their team. Every preaseason they talk about how bad ass their team is, although most years they end up somewhere between 3-7 and 7-3. I’ll give them credit for one thing: they don’t cheer for Memphis basketball. Thank God.

Winner: No one

So it looks like the final score is in favor of Ole Miss by a margin of 2-0-3. However, I just remember that I picked Tennessee in my work pool, so screw it, I’ll cheer for anything that gives me a chance at money. Go Vols. I just threw up in my mouth.


Chris