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Commitment to Egg-cellence

Mississippi State and Ole Miss meet for the 100th time in football on Thursday night. For the sixth straight year, all eyes will be on the Egg Bowl because it's the only college football game on TV. (Spies tell Dr. S that MSU AD Larry Templeton might not sign a new contract to play on Thanksgiving night. Good move, Larry, who can blame you for wanting to conceal what your footbll program has turned into?) But don't be fooled by all the subplots swirling, this game means EVERYTHING to these two teams and their fans. Dr. S says ... So Long Elis 35, So Long Jackies 21

Do We Really Have To Talk About The Egg Bowl?

While Ole Miss fans sweat out Mississippi State and find themselves forced to pull for Arkansas on Friday, Slate's Allen Barra explains the BCS' big flaw: Trying to fix something that wasn't broken.

Drug Testing in the NFL

Malcolm Gladwell writes in The New Yorker: "Despite the N.F.L.'s claims that it is concerned about the health of the players, it is more concerned about the health of the N.F.L. Football's governors make a distinction between natural violence and artificially aided violence, and it's their contention that the former has a good deal more market appeal than the latter, in the same way that consumers are believed to be willing to pay more for pure orange juice than they are for the adulterated version."

Pigskin Prognosticator On Prowl

OK, so Dr. S was correct when he predicted Southern Miss would burst TCU's BCS bubble. That's all behind us now, because it's time for Dr. S to tell you what's gonna happen on Saturday ...

Horny Toads in Hub City

Just as Dr. S predicted, Thursday night's TCU-Southern Miss game (6:30 p.m., ESPN) will be for the Conference USA championship and more. TCU still has an outside shot at a BCS bowl bid if it beats USM. The Horned Frogs are stout on both sides of the ball. The Golden Eagles kick ass on defense, as usual, and, thanks to the emergence of Dustin Almond at QB, have finally started moving the ball on offense. ... Take it from Dr. S, TCU's BCS dreams are over. USM 28, TCU 24.

Bucs Cut The Cancer

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are so sick of Keyshawn Johnson that the team deactivated the receiver on Tuesday. He will still get paid, but he won't play for the last six games of the season. If the Bucs could, they would have just cut Johnson, but that would have cost the Bucs $6 million on the salary cap right away. Believe this: If Keyshawn's reality were as good as his self-hype, he would still be playing. Now he will spend the rest of the season working on an updated edition of his autobiography under the new title "Gimme The Damn Bench!"

Kobe Dress Code

Just when you thought the Kobe Bryant case couldn't get any more ridiculous, the sheriff of Eagle County, Colo., has told his employees they can't wear some new Kobe-related T-shirts to work. Whatever happened to the uniforms and shiny badges those people used to wear on the job?

High School Grid

The playoffs start in some divisions of Mississippi high school football on Friday night. Just in time for that, Dr. S has found a cool new site, http://www.mississippi.ihigh.com/, which has news, features and, best of all, updated scores. Dr. S urges you to go to a high school game. And then check out this site.

The NBA's Worst Coach?

It's NBA time again. The New Orleans Hornets have a new coach, Tim Floyd, a Hattiesburg native. Slate's Sam Eifling wonders why the NBA's worst coach has a new job.

Was Rush Right?

Rush Limbaugh quit his ESPN NFL pre-game show because the network couldn't take the heat it caught after Limbaugh said Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb is overrated and there's a media conspiracy afoot to make sure a black quarterback is successful. (What kind of drug was Rush on when he came up with that idiotic idea?) But El-Rushbo was right about one thing: McNabb sucks. So bad that Eagles coach Andy Reid considered pulling him from Sunday's games. The Eagles are 3-3, but McNabb deserves almost none of the credit for that.

Who Da (Next) Man?

Who's going to replace Jackie Sherrill as Mississippi State's football coach? The rumor mill is grinding overtime. (Speaking of rumors, word is that Sherrill agreed to retire as part of a deal to soften NCAA sanctions against MSU.) Dr. S offers some possible candidates, in no order except alphabetical:

Let's Get Series-ous

The 100th anniversary World Series starts Saturday with the Florida Marlins playing the New York Yankees. Talk about unlikely matchups. Dr. S was pulling for the Red Sox, himself, but he was NOT pulling for the Cubs. The only good thing about the Cubs is most of their games are on WGN, so Dr. S can watch them lose regularly. Cubs whiners everywhere are blaming their meltdown in the NLCS on the actions of one man. Dr. S agrees, one man kept the Cubs out of the World Series, and that man is Cubs manager Dusty Baker.

Red Sox or Cubs?

Slate's Seth Stevenson asks the burning question: Red Sox or Cubs? Dr. S says, Red Sox, naturally because the Cubs are evil (and cheap and incompetent, until this year). Dr. S was dismayed to see Pedro Martinez knocking down 100-year-old Don Zimmer. Maybe Pedro was afraid Zim would hit him with his walker. Still, it was ridiculous for Joe Torre to deride Pedro as a chicken-hearted headhunter while Roger Clemens is wearing Yankee pinstripes. Feisty Zim showed more class than the rest of the Red Sox and Yankees organizations combined with his heart-felt apology on Sunday. Others should follow his lead.

The Young And The Reb-less

Ole Miss called off its online mascot vote on Thursday, apparently because the only people voting in the non-binding election were Mississippi State fans. Also it seems that the artist who submitted the "new" Rebel Bruiser mascot forgot to mention that a statue of Bruiser beating up a Bulldog has been on sale for a year. Hopefully, we can all put this behind us and start concentrating on real news like the Siegfried and Roy disaster or Halle Berry's marital problems. Sure the University of Mississippi has released an official statement on this latest setback, but Dr. S is still waiting to hear from his personal choice as the new Rebel mascot, former Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (left).

Rebel, Rebel

Breaking news: Dr. S' spies in Oxford claim — and The Daily Mississippian hints — that Mississippi State students and fans have broken into Ole Miss' computer system and are voting for "Rowdy Rebel" (aka Skinhead Colonel Reb) in the online referendum on a new mascot to replace Slaveowner Colonel Reb. Not that it matters: The vote is non-binding. But some Rebel rooters are frothing at the mouth, anyway.

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