The Reflector

Media Credit: Carl Carbonell

I'm sure glad I was born a Mississippi State fan and don't have to put up with the garbage that our two nearby schools have to deal with. All of their fans should be ashamed.

Alabama fakers

I've already opined on fake national championships this semester, even advocating that Mississippi State claim one in our undefeated 1940 season. Why not? Every single title before 1998 is fictional and made up anyway, and those since then are, at best, shaky.

But some teams take it to the extreme. Alabama, for example, claims 12 national titles. Pretty impressive, right? Wrong.

In many of those seasons, Alabama did finish undefeated, which, I suppose, is reason enough to claim a title (without a playoff, who's to say who's the best?), and in 1961, 1979 and 1992, they were the only undefeated, untied team. I'll even give them a break on 1965, when undefeated Michigan State, Arkansas and Nebraska all lost their bowl games, giving 9-1-1 (still a worse record than those three actually) Alabama a chance to move up.

But Alabama has to dilute its claims with blatantly fake titles.

In 1973, undefeated Alabama met undefeated Notre Dame in a legendary Sugar Bowl. The Irish prevailed 24-23 on a last second field goal. Sure enough, the Associated Press voted Notre Dame the national champion.

But back then, the Coaches' Poll didn't put out another poll after the bowls. So, Alabama was ranked No. 1 after the regular season, and even though they lost their bowl game to the national champion, they claim a national title for the year.

Come on, guys. You have enough legitimate titles. Why are you claiming a year like 1973 when you clearly have no claim to the title?

In 1978, Alabama and USC each finished with one loss. The AP Poll gave the Tide the title, but USC won the Coaches' Poll title (who, humiliated by the 1973 debacle, were now putting out a final poll after the bowls).

But here's the kicker: USC beat Alabama during the regular season. Just as it was wrong for Oklahoma to advance to the national title game in 2008 at 12-1 when they lost to 11-1 Texas, it is wrong for 11-1 Alabama to claim a 1978 title over 12-1 USC who beat them.

And the most ridiculous is 1941. Not only did Alabama finish 9-2 and lose to SEC Champion Mississippi State (9-1-1), but Minnesota, Duke and Duquesne all finished undefeated and untied that season. Only Houlgate (just one guy who published his own rankings) picked Alabama as the champion, and Alabama finished as No. 20 (20!) in the final AP poll.

If anyone from the SEC is going to claim a national title from 1941, it should clearly be Mississippi State, who only lost once, beat Alabama and won the conference. I'm not going to go so far as to advocate that, since I seriously think we should claim the 1940 title and I don't want to seem like some illegitimate homer, but if somebody's going to do it from SEC, it's us.

So come on, Tide fans. Rise up and demand some kind of decency here. We all know Alabama is one of the most storied, dominant football teams of all time. Why do you need the ego stroke of fake national titles so bad when you have some legitimate ones?

Ole Miss racists

Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones asked the Pride of the South (that's Ole Miss's misnomered marching band) to stop playing "From Dixie with Love," a mashup of "Dixie" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Why is Ole Miss dropping one of their most favored traditions? Some fans like to chant "The South will rise again!" at the end of the song.

That's right. In the 21st century, some idiots actually want to celebrate a bunch of traitors who seceded from the United States after the election of an openly abolitionist president. As much as people like to split hairs over whether the Civil War was really about slavery, the fact remains the Civil War was a clash of two contrasting cultures and economies, one built by the toil of slaves and the other built by the toil of free men.

Regardless, after school officials specifically asked fans to stop saying the inappropriate chant, a few idiots decided to say it anyway, and now the song has been axed.

Normally, I would find it funny that our rival has egg on its face to the whole country.

However, most people from outside the South don't differentiate between the Mississippi schools. When they hear that one Mississippi school is chanting a racist cheer, they don't just condemn the Rebels. They condemn the entire state of Mississippi.

Incidents like these just reinforce people's inaccurate belief that every Mississippian is a racist.

So thanks, Ole Miss fans. Thanks a lot.

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