The press joint-press conference that will announce a new series between Mississippi State and Southern Miss is still about an hour away, but the cat has already been let out of the bag. As soon as the presser announcement was sent yesterday, fans and the press on both sides already knew what was coming.
Here is a sampling of the links around the web today talking about the pending announcement of this football series.
Alan Hinton of the Hatteisburg-American says that it is always better to schedule in-state opponents, especially in a down economy.
Did you see the attendance numbers from the Southern Miss-Alcorn State and Mississippi State-Jackson State games the first week of the season? It was 36,232 for the USM-Alcorn game, the largest crowd ever at USM, and 54,232 for the MSU-JSU game, the third largest in Mississippi State history.
Kyle Veazey talks about the emotions that are stirred up as this "rivalry" is renewed.
Among State fans, it was met with mixed emotions.
"I have long thought that we should play them instead of the piddly schools that we've selected in the past," MSU fan Mark Box of Nashville wrote in an e-mail.
Then there were MSU fans such as Nathan Purvis of Brandon. "Mississippi State has everything to lose and USM has everything to gain," he wrote. "I'm all for Mississippi teams playing each other, but I just don't see the benefit of it from the Bulldog side."
The Sun Herald has a little more information on how the talks between the two schools have been going.
When asked if a news release was forthcoming this week or within the near future, Giannini said, "We will have to wait and see."
The Golden Eagles, looking for a home game in 2011, offered a home and home series with the Bulldogs instead of a two-for-one deal with the second game being played at Scott Field in Starkville.
We should have the full details on the rekindled series shortly after noon.