Posts Tagged ‘Mississippi State Bulldogs’

Note: The Tennesseeum is in its infancy, but I hope to eventually develop it into a virtual museum (hence “Tennessee-um”) of rosters, images, articles, and records pertaining to the Vols.  For now, however, it is little more than a landing page for current rosters and a few other items of interest.

If you have any content that you think belongs in a virtual museum dedicated to the Vols, feel free to contact me.

2009 Football Collection:

• 2009 Tennessee Football:

  • 2009 Coaching Staff
  • 2009 Alphabetical Roster

• 2009 SEC Previews:

  • SEC East:

    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Kentucky
    • South Carolina
    • Tennessee
    • Vanderbilt

  • SEC West:

    • Alabama
    • Auburn
    • Arkansas
    • LSU
    • Ole Miss
    • Mississippi State

Other Collections:

The Cumberland Wing:

Dedicated to the sights, sounds and history of that little collection of buildings along Cumberland Avenue known simply as “The Strip”

• “Sam & Andy’s Forever”: Remembering the legendary hangout that was Sam & Andy’s

The Tennessee Home for the Visually Offensive:

A virtual museum of some of the finest Farks (a/k/a “photoshopped”) images from the world of sports that the web has to offer including the following sub-collections:

• Lawvol’s Masterpieces
• The SEC Collection:
  • Tennessee
  • Alabama
  • Arkansas
  • Auburn
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Kentucky
  • LSU
  • Ole Miss
  • Mississippi State
  • South Carolina
  • Vanderbilt
• The College Sports Collection:
  • Memphis
  • The Big Ten
  • The ACC
  • The PAC-10
  • The Big XII
  • The Big East & Notre Dame
• The Professional Sports Collection:
  • NFL Farks
  • MLB Farks
• The Broad Horizons (Miscellaneous) Collection

This virtual museum is under construction.

New Collections Debuting Soon!!

After Mississippi State beat Central Florida to win the Liberty Bowl two years ago, it appeared that State had taken a step forward. It was the Bulldogs’ first bowl since 2000 (remember the snowy Independence Bowl win over Texas A&M?). Coach of the Year Sylvester Croom had looked to finally have broken through.

But State lost at Louisiana Tech to open last year, and two weeks later gave up just three points at home to Auburn…and still lost, in arguably the most futile offensive game in the history of football. The Bulldogs did beat Vanderbilt when the Commodores were ranked in the nation’s top 15 and beat Arkansas late in the year.

Any good feelings created by the Arkansas win were squashed by an abysmal performance in the 45-0 Egg Bowl loss to Ole Miss, in which State had just 37 yards of offense. Croom resigned the following day.

State hired Florida offensive coordinator Dan Mullen a couple of weeks later, and he brought in a recruiting class ranked #19 by Scout and #25 by Rivals. Mullen coached quarterbacks under Urban Meyer at Bowling Green and Utah, becoming Florida’s offensive coordinator when Meyer was hired in 2005.

So now a team that’s been known for their ability to run the football now begins the transition to Mullen’s spread-type offense. There’s obviously reason for optimism surrounding the Mississippi State program (starting at the top…), and it’s possible Mullen can bring success to Starkville. But then again, it’s Mississippi State. All I know is that Mullen’s got quite the work ahead of him to get State back to a respectable level, and it could be a rough year.

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Are YOU Ready?

With the conclusion of SEC Media Days today with our very own Lane Kiffin, Montario and Hardesty and Eric Berry (all the coverage you want from the SEC website and a look from Joel at Rocky Top Talk, representing all of us here in the blogosphere), the opening of fall camps around the South are just a couple of weeks away. So I’ve taken it upon myself to take a late July look at the 2009 SEC team-by-team to get you ready for the season.

Starting Sunday and continuing through next Friday, I’ll be giving my thoughts, observations, concerns, etc. on the 11 SEC teams not named Tennessee and the prospects for each for this upcoming season. I probably won’t be breaking any new ground or giving any earth-shattering information, but it’s certainly going to be a different look.

I’ve structured these previews a little differently than last year, when I took it upon myself to preview every SEC team and every Division I conference on my own site before joining the Gate. I’ve done this for a couple of reasons: first, to make these previews ever-so-slightly different from the others thousands you’ll find on the internet. Secondly, I had to structure them, otherwise I would babble on – likely incoherently – for about 2,000 words and thus defeating the purpose.

Anyways, here’s the five areas I’ll be highlighting in these previews:

• Schedule Breakdown: I’ll be taking a look at each team’s schedule – one of the most important factors in my opinion in being able to assess a team’s odds of success a month before a season starts. What games can said team expect to win? To lose? Which games are the key to the season? I’ll take a look at that.
• STUDS: Who’s each team’s best players? I’ll take a look at three players or pairs or groups of players from whom you can expect big things in 2009.
• X-Factors: Every team in the SEC outside of maybe Florida has some questions marks, areas of concern. I’ll make my picks for those keys in determining the difference for a team’s season being good or being great.
• What’s New, and What’s (Not Necessarily) Improved: For it’s been a offseason of serious change for three schools (Auburn, Mississippi State and our own Vols), each team in the SEC will be featuring some new things from last season. And just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s going to be better. I’ll be focusing on these things in this section.
• On-the-Record Prediction: Yes, believe it. I’ll be putting my credibility and reputation on the line and to stay in the Gate 21 archives with a basic prediction for each team. I won’t be picking individual games – I’m leaving myself some wiggle room with these – but I’ll forecasting a number of wins that you can expect. If you disagree with my assessments, by all means feel free to tell me how silly I am.

I’ve been working rather feverishly on these profiles the past couple of days to get them done. To prove how dedicated of a writer I am, I’ll be posting these from Gulf Shores, Alabama, where I’ll be vacationing next week. Hence why I’m working on them now as opposed to next week…

Here’s the schedule – one East school, one West school each day (sans Auburn):

• SUNDAY: Kentucky and Mississippi State
• MONDAY: Vanderbilt and Arkansas
• TUESDAY: Georgia and Alabama
• WEDNESDAY: South Carolina and LSU
• THURSDAY: Florida and Ole Miss
• FRIDAY: Auburn

… to me.

Well, after failing to get my Oklahoma State preview up in time for the game, and given the quick end to the BasketVols‘ run in the NCAA Tournament, I really haven’t had a lot to offer these past few days.  Of course, when you set the bar very low—which has always been the policy of Gate 21—it takes extra effort to fail in grand style.  I guess I am running behind in my running behind…

In the meantime, here’s a little something that is worth giving a look.  I’m a bit behind in getting this up, but this is pretty funny if you ask me (which I realize you didn’t).

Here is a pretty hilarious look at the various coaches of the SEC in a way that I don’t think I have ever seen before.  As always, this comes courtesy of VolzRChamps and BlazerChronicles.com, with a Tennessee All-Sports Update.

The Blazer Chronicles: A “Quotetastic” Look at the SEC

That Bobby Johnson quote is simply priceless…

– So it goes …

Video Courtesy of: VolzRChamps / You Tube • Blazer Chronicles

2009 SEC Tournament Championship Game

Final Statistics: Mississippi State 64 • Tennessee 61

Postgame: Quotes • Box Score

Try as they might during the 2009 SEC Tournament Championship game, the Tennessee Volunteers simply could not overcome the Mississippi State Bulldogs … or the officials.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming the BasketVols loss on the officiating, because it was awful in both directions, but the calls in the second half were as poor as I have seen in a major tournament championship in a long time, notwithstanding the fact that Ted “Rah-spect mah Au-thori-tah!!” Valentine was nowhere to be found.

Here are a few highlights, courtesy of ESPN:

Miss. State Upends the Vols| ESPN.com

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I only have a few minute, but I wanted to take a moment to cheer on the Vols today as they get ready to face the Mississippi State Bulldogs today in the SEC Tournament Championship Game.  I do not know why or how, but suddenly the Vols look like the team we all thought they would be at the start of the season.

Better late than never…

It's time to finish strong, men!

The game will air today on CBS as well as online at CBS Sports at 1:00 pm. As always, the game will also be broadcast by the Vol Network through its broadcast affiliate stations, as well as via the live internet stream available through UT Sports.com, and via XM Satellite Radio on Channel 199.

Barring incident and time permitting, I will be joining in the Live Game Thread over at Rocky Top Talk, where everyone is always welcome to join in and either celebrate or commiserate throughout the game.

Go Vols, Beat the Bulldogs!

– So it goes

Yes, I know that the logo above might not match what this post is about, but it’s the same gist as the posts from the fall I did each week: a preview of the upcoming weekend. It just happens to be this weekend’s SEC Tournament down in Tampa.

First, two things: one, this thing should NEVER be played in Tampa again. It’s like the ACC playing it’s tournament in Boston (for Boston College) or the Big East playing their’s in Milwaukee (for Marquette). These things are supposed to be played in central locations – Atlanta, Nashville, even Birmingham or Memphis (the SEC Tourney in Memphis would be better than the C-USA Tourney).

Second, don’t even think for a second I’m going to predict who will win this tournament, because neither I nor anybody else has a single clue. Partly because there’s no dominant team and the SEC this year was more or less a bunch of good mediocre teams beating each other up. I might as well put the 12 logos – er, take out Georgia and Arkansas – close my eyes and throw a dart and pick whoever said dart lands on.

Instead, I’ll go through why each team can win it all and why each team can’t win it all. Here’s your bracket and if you want to use the SEC playoffs as a warm-up for your office pool, here’s where you wanna go.

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