COLUMN — Wednesday’s revelation that the 130-year old oak trees that serve as the centerpiece of yearly celebrations at Auburn started me think about where the rivalry between Ole Miss and Mississippi State is really at right now.There is no denying that the rivalry between Alabama and Auburn is the most intense in the SEC and the nation. If you weren’t quite sure, what “Al from Dadeville” did by poisoning the Toomer’s Corner oaks took everything to a whole new level of madness and insanity.
But the fans of the Crimson Tide and fans of the Tigers aren’t the only ones that act badly when two schools in the same state get together for athletic competition. Those that follow Ole Miss and MSU don’t like each other.
That’s obvious, but we have all recently seen, things between the fan bases don’t always stop with words. This year’s Egg Bowl saw an Oxford resident, and an Ole Miss fan, severely hurt by a cow bell smuggled into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium by an MSU fan. Disagreements and rude behavior happen all the time at college football games, that’s the nature of the beast. But getting smacked in the private parts by a cow bell, that shouldn’t be allowed in the stadium at all in the stadium in the first place, should never be a part of the rivalry. That kind of behavior is crossing the line, just like putting poison into the soil around the trees at Auburn is crossing the line.
This year’s incident in Oxford wasn’t the first time illegal cow bells have inflicted pain on Ole Miss fans, or fans from other schools. personally think the rivalry between the Rebels (February 18, 2011)
