MSU News & Notes | Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween State fans! Make sure you are safe out there tonight, no matter if you're headed out tonight to collect candy, you're giving out candy, or you'll be on the dance floor at the Hunt Club grinding with a slutty Betty Boop. Tuesday was a relatively quiet day around the world of Mississippi State sports, but still, we will give you what we know of:

• MSU has "reassigned" former girls soccer coach Neil Macdonald, the school announced yesterday. Macdonald was able to amass just a 58-103-14 record in his 9 seasons in Starkville, including finishing 9-10-1 this season after an 8-0 start. As Macdonald found out, it's hard to coach one of the non major sports unless you're at LSU, Florida, Tennessee, or one of the other larger schools in the conference. With a small budget to recruit and build a program, it really is a difficult task to come in to a smaller school like State and be successful in that type of coaching position. Neil gave it his best, but in the end the school felt that wasn't enough, and he's now out as coach. Macdonald wasn't fired, though, he was simply reassigned within the athletic department. Best of luck to whomever takes over the position next.
• ALL HASHTAG ERRRTHANG, y'all. State, as you definitely know by now, is commemorating the 2000 Independence Bowl this weekend, as MSU and Texas A&M will be facing off for the first time since that snowy December evening in 2000. The school, in addition to the special edition uniforms that we will don, is also fixing up the field all special, which we found out yesterday includes the hashtag #SnowBowl12 in the north endzone.
• Earlier in the week we suggested that you check out Good Bull Hunting, SBNation's Texas A&M blog, to prepare for this weekend's game. What we didn't share with you in detail is that the guys over there are absolutely hilarious, and yesterday their latest work was another outstanding piece. Read here about SEC football coaches trick-or-treating at Mike Slive's house. I guarantee it's worth your read.
• CHRIS BERMAN WILL BE A JEDI IN THE NEW STAR WARS FILM, hopes no one, ever, anywhere. But seriously, Disney yesterday bought Lucasfilm for FOUR BILLION DOLLARS /does Dr. Evil pinky to mouth. They say that the next Star Wars film, Episode 7, will be released in 2015 /nerds immediately form line outside nearest theater.
• Johnthan Banks, on channeling Fred Smoot, and trying to contain Johnny Football.
• At the same time, DC Chris Wilson is trying to figure out what to do about Manziel.
• Tuesday interviews with players including Dillon Day, Tyler Russell, and Chris Smith, among others.
• I threw this out on twitter last night shortly after leaving the theater, but let me add it again here: Argo is the best movie of the year. Yes, yes, yes, I know what you're going to say. I already received several "over batman?"'s on twitter last night, and I assure you, it is better than even The Dark Knight Rises. Now let me follow that statement up with this: I am a huge, HUGE CIA fan. Anything: books, fact or fiction, as well as movies, that I can get my hands on, I read or watch. But I despite my lean towards spook films, I still think you have to consider Argo for picture of the year. The casting was outstanding: featuring Affleck, Goodman, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, even coach Eric Taylor was in it, and all were amazing. Even if you see it and don't think it's better than TDKR, I guarantee you will still enjoy it. Even if only for the fact of how harrowing a tale it is, and that it's based on a piece of American history that we can be proud of. If you've seen it, let me know if you agree.

That's it for today's News and Notes folks. Half way to Friday!

[UPDATE - 10.31.2012, 6a.m.] Obvious Halloween bonus video

Michael Jackson - Thriller (via michaeljacksonVEVO)