Thursday, September 7 Football much more than a game in Mississippi By Pat Forde Special to ESPN.com

This is a sports story about the unexpectedly wonderful state of college football in Mississippi, but bear with us. We're first going to take a detour through the Southern psyche before arriving at today's blocking and tackling news.

	Mississippi State remained undefeated despite an injury to quarterback Wayne Madkin last week.

In the early 1990s, former Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer Ed Hinton crafted what is could be the definitive short essay on football in the South. Specifically, as it related to his home state of Mississippi:

"There is still an abyss in my gut, from Halloween night, 1959 -- the night, according to the Mississippi River lore, when there arose the great Tiger Stadium roar that has not ceased since. It was the night of Billy Cannon's Run, the 89-yard punt return that many still call the greatest ever in football. I was for the losing side.

"My haunting has to do with vastly more than football -- but then, college football always has to do with vastly more than football, in the South. If not for Cannon's almost supernatural run, had LSU not beaten Ole Miss 7-3, then the Rebels almost certainly would have waltzed to the national championship. They might have built a dynasty a la Alabama. They might have gained for Mississippians what all Southerners, deep down, seek to gain from college football: small measures of respect, acceptance and satisfaction from a larger nation that has looked down on us, Down Here. With the respect might have come a better sense of belonging to the nation; with that belonging might have come less resistance to national law during the civil rights movement of the early 1960s. And Mississippi, my home, might have been a little less tragic place."

And it might help explain the joy in the state of Mississippi at present.

Mississippi State is 6-0 and ranked No. 12 in America, its highest ranking since October 1981. Mississippi is 5-1, its best start since 1990, and ranked No. 22. Southern Mississippi is 3-2 against its typical monster schedule and ranked No. 25 by the Associated Press.

Juleps for everyone. This marks the first time that all three have crashed the Top 25 simultaneously.

"Poor Ol' Whupped-Down Miss'ippi," always near the bottom of the national rankings in health, education and poverty statistics, is near the top this week in football.

This takes some upstream swimming. In many categories, the Mississippi schools are dwarfed by their SEC brethren.

Mississippi has the smallest population of any southern state -- approximately 2.7 million. In enrollment, Ole Miss is 11th of 12, ahead of only the sole private school in the ranks, Vanderbilt. Mississippi State is ninth.

Mississippi State's Scott Field is the smallest stadium in the league (capacity 40,656). Mississippi's Vaught-Hemingway Field ranks 10th (50,577).

Athletic budgets are similarly stacked against the Mississippi schools. Accordingly, so is football heritage.

State has been to 10 bowl games, ninth-most in the SEC. Ole Miss, which at least had the John Vaught salad days of the 1950s and '60s, has been to 27 -- but hasn't played in a major bowl since New Year's Day 1970.

So it is a rare thing when a Mississippi school rises to the top of the heap. Rarer still when three do it at once.

"I think football is important, and I really believe that year-in and year-out that all three of us will have real solid football teams," rookie Ole Miss head coach David Cutcliffe told the Associated Press.

"Football has always been big in this state," said Southern Miss head coach Jeff Bower, whose program over the years has perhaps done more with less than any this side of the Air Force Academy. "I think it also says that if you keep the homegrown kids, you can be successful."

Added Mississippi State coach Jackie Sherrill: "Having the ability to do that makes a pretty good statement of the programs, what's happening at the programs, how well they're being coached and the talent level in each program."

The Bulldogs are 6-0 for the first time since World War II, and their six-game winning streak is tied for fifth-longest in school history. After a bye week they have upcoming home games against LSU and Kentucky (the latter a Thursday night ESPN game). So an 8-0 mark heading into the Alabama game -- which at the moment figures to be for all the marbles in the SEC West -- is a distinct possibility.

The schedule has been lenient, but the Bulldogs have answered all challenges set before them. And they were downright heroic in coming back to win at Auburn last Saturday.

When starting quarterback Wayne Madkin went out at halftime with an injured finger on his throwing hand, the 'Dogs looked whipped. They trailed 10-0 at the time and had to rely on senior Matt Wyatt, who lost the job early last year due to manifold incompetence.

But on the road and fighting uphill, the maligned Wyatt led the Bulldogs back to a remarkable 18-16 victory. They scored 15 points in the last 2½ minutes. Wyatt threw the winning touchdown pass with 19 seconds left.

Ole Miss, which had a considerable base of returning talent, was trying to mesh it with a new coach after Tommy Tuberville split for Auburn. When the Rebels opened with uneven victories over Memphis and Arkansas State, then lost at home to Vanderbilt, of all teams, this looked like a get-acquainted season.

But after a convincing road win over lamentable South Carolina and a come-from-behind win over Tulane, Ole Miss looks legit. The second half of the season will provide the proof, starting Saturday at home against Alabama. After that comes LSU, Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi State is the annual season-ending Egg Bowl, which could be a doozy this year.

And then there is Southern Miss -- the school snubbed by even its downtrodden in-state SEC neighbors.

Nobody wants to schedule the Golden Eagles -- Ole Miss and State included.State hasn't played Southern since 1990, and Ole Miss has dodged the Eagles since 1984.

They're simply too good for their own good, making them the Coppin State of college football. They're the team that has to schedule an inordinate and unfair number of road games because nobody wants to come to Hattiesburg and get beat by a program with a stature deficiency.

Coach Jeff Bower said that's changing under new athletic director Richard Giannini, who isn't interested in scheduling two-for-ones and three-for-ones with national heavyweights anymore.

Quote of the week
"Tackling is nothing more than guts. You have guts, you make the tackle. We didn't have any guts on that."
-- Louisville coach John L. Smith, his own guts still churning over the half-dozen faint-hearted efforts to bring down Army fullback Mike Wallace on his now-famous 74-yard touchdown run last Thursday night, during Army's epic 59-52 double overtime win.

ESPN's "SportsCenter" put numerals next to the arm-tackles and waist-hugs of the Cardinals as they happened -- totaling five. And they might have missed one.

Thirty minutes of Mike Wallace was tougher than Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes" ever dreamed of being. He tore through the Cards for 225 yards in the first half, on his way to an Army record 269 yards for the game.

Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.