University of Mississippi

Amid last night’s post-election social media storm, Facebook and Twitter buzzed with news that “riots” had broken out on the University of Mississippi campus over Barack Obama’s re-election. Reports spread of hundreds of students collecting on campus, yelling racial epithets, and burning Obama/Biden signs. There were also rumors of rocks being thrown and pepper spray being used to disperse the crowd.

Ole Miss student burns an Obama/Biden lawn sign

Ole Miss student burns an Obama/Biden lawn sign

A grainy video was taken, showing students milling about, cop cars patrolling, students singing the Ole Miss ~~fight song~~ school cheer, “Hotty Toddy,” and police telling a student, wrapped in an American flag and riding in the back of a pickup truck, to sit down. Another photo then emerged of a student, who identified himself on Twitter as Brandon Adams, setting an Obama lawn sign on fire.

The University of Mississippi has responded that the events were “fueled by social media, and the conversation should have stayed there.”

According to University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones, police officers were alerted of “Twitter chatter” among students inciting a protest of the presidential election results at the student union. When police arrived they found around 40 students gathered in front of the union. Within 20 minutes the gathering had grown to more than 400 students. The crowd of students chanting political slogans was dispersed by university police. Shortly thereafter, around 100 students gathered at a residence hall. University police broke up the gathering and made two arrests — “for disorderly conduct, including one for public intoxication and one for failure to comply with police orders.”

Chancellor Jones has expressed that some of the incidents reported on social media outlets were less than accurate:

“Unfortunately, early news reports quoted social media comments that were inaccurate. Too, some photographs published in social media portrayed events that police did not observe on campus. Nevertheless, the reports of uncivil language and shouted racial epithets appear to be accurate and are universally condemned by the university, student leaders and the vast majority of students who are more representative of our university creed.”

For now, the administration says it will conduct “a thorough review of this incident to determine the facts and any follow-up actions that may be necessary.”

… And all must have prizes. We’re talking about the bounteous blessings that the holiday season has bestowed upon various local university athletic departments.

Closest to home is the University of Memphis, which (besides having one of the top-ranked basketball teams in the nation) finished its football season in a blaze of unexpected glory, winning five of its last six games to finish 7-5, becoming thereby bowl-worthy. In its finale against Southern Methodist University, Tommy West’s Tigers thrilled all who beheld the game with a triple-overtime victory. The team’s prize? A visit to the New Orleans Bowl and, one hopes, a bumper recruiting crop for next year.

Then there’s the University of Tennessee Volunteers. They won their heart-stopper against the University of Kentucky, triumphing finally in four overtimes, no less, 52-50, when the Vols stopped a two-point effort by the Wildcats, victors against mighty L.S.U. in a previous multiple-overtime game this year. All the Volunteers gained from Saturday’s game was the Eastern Conference championship of the Southeastern Conference. And a place in the SEC title contest. That’s all.

Speaking of L.S.U., those other Tigers from Louisiana State had long since recovered from their licking by Kentucky to regain the number-one ranking in the nation, until they encountered on Saturday yet another football team with a strong local following. This was the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, who played either well over their heads or up to their potential in downing the Bayou Bengals, 50-48, in, yep, another triple-overtime affair.

In the process, Razorback quarterback Darren McFadden surely enhanced his credentials for the Heisman Trophy. Meanwhile, the Razorbacks en masse enhanced their credentials for the Cotton Bowl with the victory. There was one cloud over Arkansas’ holiday sunshine, however: the resignation of longtime head coach Houston Nutt, victim of some passing strange northwest Arkansas soap opera which we don’t pretend to understand.

Mississippi State’s Bulldogs had suffered three straight losing seasons under head coach Sylvester Croom. But— eureka! — they emerged from Saturday’s Egg Bowl contest against arch-rival Ole Miss with one of the strangest come-from-behind victories we’ve seen in quite a while. That was owing to Rebel coach Ed Orgeron’s bizarre decision, with a 14-0 lead and 10 minutes left, ball at midfield and fourth and one, to go against logic and the odds in an effort to make a first down. Bad idea. The Bulldogs got the ball, the momentum, and the game, as they made two quick touchdowns and kicked a last-second field goal — 17-14 and over and out for Orgeron, who was let go as Ole Miss coach the next day.

So, is the University of Mississippi, winless in its SEC games for the first time since 1982, the only sad sack in the holiday saga of Mid-South college football? Actually, Arkansas’ loss became Mississippi’s gain with the hiring on Tuesday of the aforesaid Nutt as Rebel coach. Not since the late Johnny Vaught has Ole Miss possessed a football mentor with the record and reputation that Nutt, voted Coach of the Year in 2006, will bring. Nutt is what you might call glad tidings for the once-mighty Rebel program — the ghost of Christmas future, as it were.

Congratulations, all, and pass the cranberry sauce.