A Look Inside the Ole Miss Psyche
Monday, August 3, 2009

Read it here.
I know how you feel Ole Miss fans. I know what it's like to clutch a preseason magazine close to your chest and inhale the paper and ink slowly, get high off the football season anticipation. "Athlon has us No. 10 in the country!" you might say. It's a giddy feeling, enrapturing even. Like being told you can go home with any sorority girl of your choosing in the Grove. Hotty Toddy, Gosh Almighty, Ole Miss is a legitimate contender for the national title!
Except, and Rebel fans know exactly what I'm talking about, in the back of your mind you really can't believe your good fortune.
The Greg Hardy and Dexter McCluster car fire? You expected it. The Jamar Hornsby dismissal? You knew it was inevitable. Jevan Snead tripping and falling into an open culvert on campus, being rescued after a vigil on national television, and breaking his throwing arm in the process? Easy, easy, that hasn't happened. But if it did, you'd have expected it, right?
Dickens began A Tale Of Two Cities with these words, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." (You may not remember that because the Cliff Notes didn't begin that way) It takes a gaudy preseason ranking for a perennial doormat to make those words ring true for a sports fan.
Peril lurks around every date on the calendar. Remember when you were a kid and Christmas never seemed like it would get here. You wanted a Miss Elizabeth wrestling figure and a Dukes of Hazzard big wheel more than life itself and, yet, even as Christmas neared, you were terrified you might not get either. Each day heralded the sweet suspense of uncertainty. You'd toss down a calendar date and stare at the square, delicious anticipation -- we're going to win them all -- mixed with delirious dread -- State's going to take our egg!
Right now Ole Miss fans are 35 days from the start of the season and each day is a feather to the bottom of their feet, the tickle of temptation, the agony of being tortured with pleasure.
Continue here. Labels: ole miss preseason hype claynation
Posted by Clay Travis at 7:22 PM

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