| Monday, October 27, 2014 |
| Mississippi State, Corps Create New Research Center | |
 | A new partnership between the state's flagship research university and one of the nation's premier research centers will create a hub to develop advanced systems that enhance existing industries, attract new jobs, and bolster national defense capabilities, according to Mississippi State's chief executive. "Today's ceremony marks the formal beginning of what I am confident will soon be recognized as a premier national center of excellence in systems engineering," President Mark E. Keenum said. Thursday afternoon [Oct. 23], officials from the university, State of Mississippi and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement to create the Institute for Systems Engineering Research at the Engineer Research and Development Center's Information Technology Laboratory in Vicksburg. |
| Mississippi State's foundation crop seed benefits farmers | |
 | Mississippi State University's foundation seed program, a unit of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, has provided seed to Mississippi seed distributors and growers for 55 years. Brad Burgess, MSU director of research support for variety testing and foundation seed, oversees the program. Major crops include sweet sorghum, soybean and rice. MSU also produces foundation sweet potato slips and some minor crops as well. "The purpose of our seed stock program is to provide a basic and practical link between public plant breeders and seed producers around the state," Burgess said. "Mississippi is our first priority, but we try to accommodate other states and even other countries if the need is there and supply is available." The journey of certified seed is complex. |
| Kress Building to be part of MSU-Meridian | |
 | The Kress Building in downtown Meridian is being renovated to house the kinesiology program for the local campus of Mississippi State University. Project coordinator Benjamin Wax tells WTOK-TV in Meridian kinesiology has been one of the fastest growing departments and the new facility will only continue to increase student interest. The program is supported by an $11 million grant from the Riley Foundation. The new building will house teaching labs, research labs, offices, state-of-the-art classrooms, new technology for students and another library. |
| State's pumpkin growers hurt by disease, summer rain | |
 | Pumpkins are popping up on porches across Mississippi, but some growers had trouble getting them there. Many Mississippi pumpkin farmers experienced heavy disease pressure and a delayed harvest due to frequent summer rains. Growers planted more acres this year, but harvested fewer pumpkins than usual, said Stanley Wise, Union County agriculture and natural resource enterprise and community development agent with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. |
| As more stores move into the Golden Triangle, how is competition shaping up? | |
 | About a decade ago, Shane Reed, a Neshoba County native who graduated from Mississippi State in 2000, decided to open a business in the Golden Triangle. He came to Starkville for school, fell in love with the town and decided to put roots down. Reed grew up watching his family operate Woody's Stop-N-Shop in Noxapater. He knew the ins and outs of operating a small business and felt Starkville needed what he called a "real coffeehouse." So in the spring of 2005, after a stint as the manager at a local theater, he opened Strange Brew, a coffeehouse along Highway 12. College students -- there are roughly 20,000 at MSU -- were target customers. Soon, though, the community as a whole took to the place. Local professionals, families out on the town and high school kids alike, became loyal coffee connoisseurs, and Reed's coffeehouse essentially had the market to itself. Then, in late May, a Starbucks opened directly across the street from Strange Brew. |
| Backpack Buddies program helps feed hungry students | |
| One of Starkville's most successful feeding programs can trace its roots to a deception. A little over three years ago, a high school kid started turning up at after school tutoring program. What was unusual is that the student's grades were good and did not appear to need the help being offered. Finally, when pressed, the student confessed: He had been coming not for help with school work, but for the snack, which was usually his supper for the day. "It was then that we began to wonder if there were other students that weren't getting meals, especially on the weekends," said Susan Tomlinson, who is the volunteer coordinator for Starkville Backpack Buddies, which provides meals to students to take home on the weekends. |
| Starkville eases debris ordinances, drop-off fees | |
| Starkville aldermen relaxed several city ordinances Tuesday to help speed up debris removal following last week's storm that downed numerous trees. Throughout town, numerous piles of trunks and limbs remained curbside Wednesday as Starkville's Sanitation and Environmental Services Department lacks the proper equipment to assist in their removal. Several city rules also impeded workers from tending to the piles. Aldermen, including Ward 2's Lisa Wynn, took exception to city workers who issued yellow code reminders just days after the storm to those affected by debris. She repeatedly held up an example of the reminder and asked the public if issuing such notices so soon was in good taste. Other government entities, including the city's electric, street, water and sewer departments, pledged to support sanitation's cleanup efforts with their own dump trucks and drivers. |
| Mississippi 'addicted to incarceration' | |
 | Experts say the best way to keep people out of prison is to educate them -- and start young. "I grew up on a farm, and I don't know anybody who loaded a truck from the back end, but that's what we're doing," said Oleta Fitzgerald, director of the Children's Defense Fund's Southern Regional Office. "We've got remediation for students in school, we've got remediation before they go to college, but we don't want to invest on the front end." Mississippi spends three times more to incarcerate an inmate for a year -- $15,151 -- than it does to educate a student. Despite the fact the crime rate has declined in the U.S. more than 40 percent, the number sent to prison has quadrupled in places like Mississippi in recent decades. "We're addicted to incarceration," said Paul DeMuro, former commissioner of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania. "And we believe that addiction can be cured by longer and longer sentences under the notion that longer punishment is more effective." |
| South Mississippi congressional field crowded, but it's not much of a race | |
 | There's a crowded field in the 4th Congressional District but it doesn't look like much of a race. Incumbent Rep. Steven Palazzo, a two-term Republican, likely vanquished his toughest opponent, former Congressman Gene Taylor, in the primary. "Does Steven have an opponent?" asked Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves last week. He didn't seem to be joking. Palazzo actually has five opponents -- a Libertarian, a relative newcomer running for the Reform Party, a couple of independents, and perhaps the most viable, Matt Moore, a Democrat making his second run at Palazzo. Moore has relied mostly on shoe leather, a social media presence and some yard signs. |
| Lowndes County Senate candidates prepare for election | |
| In 10 days, Lowndes County voters will go to the polls to choose which of four candidates will fill the unexpired term of former District 17 state senator Terry Brown, who died Sept. 4 after a battle with cancer. Four men -- Bill "Doc" Canon, Bill Gavin, Bobby Patrick and Chuck Younger -- will be on the ballot for the Nov. 4 special election, which will be held concurrently with the state's general election. District 17 comprises all of Lowndes County, although the district will have new boundaries next year when the current term expiries. Mississippi University for Women will host a candidates debate at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Poindexter Hall. Candidates will be allowed to make a brief opening statement, address questions from the audience and close with a statement. Members of the The W's student newspaper will serve as moderators for the event. |
| Court puts end to McDaniel appeal | |
 | The Mississippi Supreme Court on Friday affirmed a lower court's ruling that Chris McDaniel waited too long to file a legal challenge to his election loss to six-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. The 4-2 ruling effectively ends McDaniel's state court challenge of the outcome of the June 24 Republican primary runoff for the Senate seat held by Cochran for six terms. In a statement released late Friday, Mitch Tyner, who represents McDaniel, made no mention of the possibility of further court action. "While we disagree with the majority, since there was no deadline in the statute to file a challenge, we are glad the Supreme Court finally ruled so Mississippi conservatives can move forward into 2015," Tyner said. |
| Cochran counts on voter familiarity for re-election | |
| Thad Cochran, standing on a podium in the middle of a blocked-off section of Congress Street with the Governor's Mansion to his right, pointed to the nine-floor Plaza Building to his left and recalled he was an attorney in that building when he opted to run and win a U.S. House seat in 1972. "My wife (the former Rose Clayton of New Albany) and I were apprehensive with two small children about moving off to Washington and trying to fit into a political environment we were not accustomed to," said Cochran, who was at the block party held in his honor Thursday evening as he campaigns for a seventh term in the United States Senate. Cochran describes the era when he first ran and won the 4th District U.S. House seat, which encompassed the Jackson area and parts of southwest Mississippi, as "a time for change, of fear, of uncertainty, but an underpinning of confidence." |
| Childers' politics shaped by his life experiences | |
| Travis Childers left his lifetime hometown of Booneville at 4 a.m. on this particular day to travel first to central Mississippi and then on to the southwest corner of the state to campaign for the United States Senate. The 56-year-old Prentiss County Democrat is considered a heavy underdog against six-term Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in the Nov. 4 general election. But based on Childers' travel schedule for this particular day, he isn't giving up. Childers' day included meeting with three newspaper editorial boards, making campaign stops to shake hands at locations where voters might be found, such as the Warren County Courthouse in Vicksburg, and attending a meeting of Mississippi supervisors in Natchez. |
| Has GOP primary controversy hurt Childers' chance at Senate? | |
| Former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers acknowledges he faces a tough task running for senator in Mississippi, a conservative state that hasn't chosen a Democrat for that job since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Childers doesn't even mention his party label in his TV ads as he tries to unseat six-term Republican Thad Cochran in the Nov. 4 general election --- a race in which Childers has been outspent by Cochran and overshadowed by twists and turns of a GOP primary that was challenged in the courts. Ask Childers if he plans to support keeping Harry Reid as the Democratic leader in the Senate, and the 56-year-old Booneville resident never quite gives a straight yes or no. |
| Louisiana Senate Runoff Questions Remain After LSU Football Win | |
 | If Louisiana State University's two conference losses earlier this year had briefly quieted anxious chatter in Bayou State political circles, the school's Oct. 25 victory over Ole Miss has both college football fans and Senate campaigns in the state keeping a close eye on the rest of the season. The Southeastern Conference is holding its championship game Dec. 6, the same day Democratic Sen. Mary L. Landrieu and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy -- both LSU graduates -- would face off in a runoff if neither takes a majority of the vote on Election Day. The issue for the campaigns: The game is in Atlanta, and if LSU qualified, tens of thousands of voters would be out of state on that day to cheer on the Tigers. Motivating turnout on a Saturday a few weeks before Christmas is never easy, but the exodus of a portion of the voting base -- or simply not paying as much attention to politics -- would add an unpredictable wrinkle. |
| In a Republican takeover, which Mitch McConnell would lead the Senate? | |
 | Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has nearly within his grasp the job he's dreamed for decades of achieving, that of majority leader of the U.S. Senate. "There's no question that this is the ultimate goal of his life," said former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. "He'll want to do something with it if he gets it." There are big questions, though, about which version of McConnell would show up to lead the Senate: the pragmatic deal maker or the partisan. Lott, the former Republican majority leader from Mississippi and now a lobbyist in Washington, said he expects McConnell would come out in deal-maker mode. Majority leader would be a much different role than he's been playing now, Lott said, and there would be a lot of challenges. "He would need to look for some things to move that are generally broad, bipartisan issues," Lott said. "They may not be big but they can set the tone and the tempo." |
| Quarantining health workers could worsen Ebola epidemic, officials say | |
 | Top Obama administration officials publicly warned Sunday that mandatory quarantines in the U.S. of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who have traveled to Africa to help Ebola patients risked worsening the epidemic. Mandatory 21-day quarantines, now in place in New York, New Jersey and Illinois, are "a little bit draconian" and could discourage people from helping to fight the disease, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top Ebola expert at the National Institutes of Health, said in several television interviews Sunday. Fauci's public remarks came as the administration privately pushed states to reconsider. |
| MUW receives gift of more than $2M in support of scholarships | |
| Ann Coleman Peyton, granddaughter of Mississippi University for Women founding mother Annie Coleman Peyton, has provided a bequest gift of more than $2 million to support scholarships for W history students. On Friday, MUW President Dr. Jim Borsig, presented the Mary Lou Peyton Scholarship to the university and then assisted in unveiling a portrait of Annie Coleman Peyton. "Generous private support such as this from the Peyton family allows us to provide meaningful academic opportunities for students who seek their education at The W," Borsig said. "It is a significant gift for us, and perhaps even more so because of this gift's historical connections to our earliest days." The Mary Lou Peyton Scholarship will be awarded to qualified students majoring in history. |
| 'Ole Miss' Debates Campus Traditions With Confederate Roots | |
 | University of Mississippi football is riding high these days. But as Ole Miss fans come together to root for their team, many other traditions are coming under scrutiny. The school's been engaged in a long-running effort to remove potentially divisive, and racially charged symbols, to try and make the campus more "welcoming." One tradition that's not changing is the university's nickname, "Ole Miss." The phrase was how slaves once addressed the mistress of the plantation. It's ubiquitous on campus, on signs, sweatshirts and in the football cheer. "Ole Miss has been here since I can remember, it needs to stay," says Tommy Lee, a 1982 Ole Miss grad. "That is our slogan: We are Ole Miss." University chancellor Dan Jones also defends the "Ole Miss" name against its critics. |
| U. of Southern Mississippi looking at ways to trim budget | |
 | A hiring slowdown, larger classes and reducing travel are among the methods the University of Southern Mississippi may use to cut 4 1/2 percent from its annual budget, administrators say. The cost-cutting measures -- though not instituted yet --- are a response to an enrollment decline over the past few years. This fall, the university experienced a 2.6 percent decrease with 14,845 students enrolled -- the number is slightly down from fall 2013 when Southern Miss had 15,249 students. "Our goal is to reduce the budget without impacting the students' experience," Southern Miss Provost Denis Wiesenburg said. "... The cost-cutting measures will have consequences, but we're looking at cuts that will cause the least harm to students or the programs." Wiesenburg said the university's headcount enrollment figures can be misleading -- adding that FTE (full-time equivalent) figures more accurately show the drop. |
| USM looking at ways to trim 4.5 percent from its annual budget | |
| Administrators say a hiring slowdown, larger classes and reducing travel are among the methods the University of Southern Mississippi may use to cut 4 1/2 percent from its annual budget. The Hattiesburg American reports the cost-cutting measures -- though not instituted yet -- are a response to an enrollment decline over the past few years. Douglas Vinzant, the university's vice president of Finance and Administration, said the budget cuts are not mandated by the Institutions of Higher Learning or the state Legislature. Vinzant said the university is not considering a hiring freeze -- but more of a hiring slowdown where administrators would look closely at open positions to determine if they need to be filled. The university has about 50 administrative, faculty and staff positions now open. |
| Pearl River Community College's Barnes selected for Stennis Institute fellowship program | |
| Raymunda Barnes has been selected to participate in the Mississippi Education Policy Fellowship Program along with 17 other professional and civic leaders throughout the state. Barnes is assistant vice president at Pearl River Community College's Hancock Center in Waveland. The 10-month intensive professional development program equips leaders in education and related fields to work toward developing sound education policy and practice in Mississippi. The program is an initiative of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development at Mississippi State University. |
| U. of Arkansas Technology Park To Celebrate 10 Years | |
 | The University of Arkansas' Arkansas Research & Technology Park in Fayetteville will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its opening on Thursday. The park encompasses a total of 126 acres, with three multitenant facilities and three multidisciplinary research facilities comprising roughly 285,000 SF of research and development capacity. More than 20 UA research centers, institutes and labs call the park home. At the close of the 2014 fiscal year, 38 public/private affiliate companies and 196 employees were based at the park, resulting in a total employment impact of 385 jobs statewide, according to Phil Stafford, president of the UA Technology Development Foundation, which oversees the park. |
| Innovative new U. of Florida dorm will combine living, learning | |
 | Students living in the residence halls on campus at the University of Florida cannot operate a business out of their dorm rooms. Can't have FedEx trucks coming by to pick up packages. Can't have supply trucks dropping off supplies. Can't build prototypes in the community room. A new residence hall being built two blocks east of campus will allow all that and more. In fact, entrepreneurs and startup businesses are welcome. Infinity Hall, a first-of-its kind public-private partnership between the University of Florida and Signet Development, will have dorm space for 308 students to live, eat and sleep, and another 20,000 square feet of space for them to pursue their projects. It's also the first privately funded project in Innovation Square and the first privatized dorm at UF. |
| Texas A&M program merges art and science to address climate issues | |
 | Two Texas A&M University programs have partnered to help explain climate change issues facing the state. The Sea Grant Program at Texas A&M has teamed up with the university's Institute for Applied Creativity to create a semester-long internship position that will use videos to address topics surrounding weather, water and climate change. Intern Joshua Aoki, a master's student in the Department of Visualization in the Texas A&M College of Architecture, will combine visual art and science in the series of educational videos, which will be posted online and possibly aired on public television. |
| Texas A&M students engineer tools for first responders | |
| It's going to be a rough Monday for Texas A&M senior Tadeo Huerta. The 22-year-old from Little Elm said he received a combined nine hours of sleep Friday and Saturday night, fewer hours than he typically averages per night on the weekend. "I like my sleep, so I'm going to be suffering this week," Huerta said Sunday. "But it was well worth it." Huerta was one of 75 Texas A&M students who participated in Aggies Invent, a 48-hour event during which time students were tasked with brainstorming, designing and developing a product intended to be used to alleviate some of the challenges faced by first responders in the field. |
| U. of Missouri professor shares research, experience as mother who adopted children across racial lines | |
 | With a gentle spin of a finger, Colleen Colaner shaped a tight, black curl on top of her daughter's head. Camille Colaner, 11 months old, let out a playful squeal and reached for her mother. "Her hair has been a big thing," said Colleen Colaner, a professor of interpersonal communication at the University of Missouri. "We just took her to a salon recommended for black hair, because as the hair gets bigger and curlier, I wasn't really sure what to do with it." Camille was adopted by Colleen Colaner and her husband, Seth Colaner, nearly a year ago. Both of her birth parents are African-American. The Colaners have a second adopted daughter, Essie Colaner, now 4. Her birth parents are white. Caring for two adopted daughters has presented obvious challenges to Colleen Colaner and her husband, but they have been augmented by matters of race and background. |
| How to reverse and prevent state disinvestment in higher education | |
 | When they are being pounded for having raised their students' tuition, public college leaders are quick in turn to point the finger at legislators and governors in their states, whose cuts in financing for higher education are overwhelmingly responsible for the tuition increases. A new report from the Center for American Progress details -- on a state-by-state basis -- the extent to which recession-driven reductions in public college financing since 2008 have sent tuitions soaring, and how disproportionately low- and middle-income students and the institutions that serve them have been affected. And the report cites that evidence in arguing for a new partnership in which the federal government would -- with investments of its own -- encourage states to spend more of their own funds to boost college-going and graduation, particularly by those traditionally underserved by higher education. |
| Black Man in the Lab | |
 | For two decades, academic researchers have asked the same questions about black males in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, known as the STEM fields. The scarcity of black men earning STEM degrees has been documented repeatedly. In establishing why progress has been so slow, there is no single answer, says Earnestine P. Easter, a program director in the division of graduate education at the foundation. Black males face more than a few obstacles before they reach college. Another reason is that the matter doesn't receive sustained, consistent attention. |
| OUR OPINION: Ruling should end McDaniel odyssey | |
| The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal editorializes: "In the wake of the Mississippi Supreme Court's rejection on Friday of Chris McDaniel's challenge of his loss to Thad Cochran in the Republican senatorial runoff, Mississippians could take heart in a statement from McDaniel attorney Chris Tyner. 'While we disagree with the majority ...we are glad the Supreme Court finally ruled so Mississippi conservatives can move forward into 2015,' Tyner said. Maybe that means McDaniel will finally end his meritless post-election campaign to have the election results overturned. It probably doesn't mean he'll give up his campaign for political martyrdom, however, and actually concede the race." |
| SAM R. HALL (OPINION): Corrections needs leadership, not excuses | |
| The Clarion-Ledger's Sam R. Hall writes: "Today marks the culmination of more than a year's worth of work investigating the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Clarion-Ledger investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell has done a tremendous job highlighting some of the most serious problems with our corrections system... Of all the revelations from this series, the most troubling is the reaction from Corrections Commissioner Christopher B. Epps. His reactions mostly center around attacking some aspect of Mitchell's work. It's easy to shoot the messenger, but doing so doesn't show much leadership." |
| PAUL HAMPTON (OPINION): There's a wild card in what is shaping up to be a wild finish in Senate race | |
| The Sun Herald's Paul Hampton writes: "With a little more than a week to go, Republicans in Mississippi seem a mite anxious. ...Republicans aren't taking Childers lightly. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves laid it out at the Harrison County Republican Club last week, when he called the race for control of the Senate 'the most important election of our lifetime given the policies going on in Washington, D.C., and the direction of our country led by this president.' ...He said voting for Childers would be voting for Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Sound familiar? It should." |
| GEOFF PENDER (OPINION): Poll: pick the top 5 weirdest Senate 2014 moments | |
| The Clarion-Ledger's Geoff Pender writes: "It's finally time to vote on the 2014 Mississippi U.S. Senate race. No, not on a candidate -- that's Nov. 4. It's time to pick the strangest, most confounding events in a race that was historically bizarre, deemed 'weirdest' of the midterms or -- as the New York Times put it -- 'most extravagantly weird.' Particularly, the long bitter GOP primary battle between incumbent Thad Cochran and tea party-backed challenger Chris McDaniel spawned many 'What the...?' moments." |
| SID SALTER (OPINION): Lawmakers more likely to confront Medicaid expansion after 2015 elections | |
 | Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: "Public health care advocates hoping to see Medicaid expansion in Mississippi under the Affordable Care Act will likely again be disappointed during the 2014 session of the Mississippi Legislature. With Mississippi's eight statewide officials and all 174 state legislators in the final legislative session before the 2015 election cycle begins in earnest, the chances of Medicaid expansion drawing more than a few press conferences or protest rallies are slim and none. Republicans and less than dyed-in-the-wool Democrats alike will avoid the issue like the plague. ...Past the 2015 election cycle, a number of legislators are quietly watching the so-called 'private option' Medicaid expansion that's playing out in neighboring Arkansas." |
SPORTS
| Mississippi State remains No. 1 team in the country | |
| Mississippi State remained atop both polls when they were released on Sunday. It's the third straight week the Bulldogs are No. 1 in both the AP and Amway Coaches' Poll. Mississippi State garnered 46 first-place votes in the AP poll. That's the most the school has ever received. MSU received 43 last week and 45 when it debuted at No. 1. Mississippi State remains in conference play this weekend. It hosts Arkansas at Davis Wade Stadium on Saturday. |
| Bulldogs: SEC's last unbeaten standing | |
| Ole Miss became the first Magnolia State school to fall in the College Football Playoff sweepstakes. The Rebels dropped four spots to No. 7 in the latest Associated Press poll after Saturday's 10-7 loss at LSU. Mississippi State maintained its top ranking for a third consecutive week. The Bulldogs received a scare at Kentucky but never trailed in the contest, pulling out a 45-31 victory. MSU extended its winning streak to 10 games and improved to 7-0 overall. "Hopefully, we can get all of this ranking stuff behind us," MSU coach Dan Mullen said after Saturday's game. "I don't know where we'll rank. You can drop us if you want or you can raise us, I don't really care on any of that now. I think our kids are going to be over it now. We're 4-0 in the SEC after playing a tough road game in a tough environment." |
| Top-ranked Mississippi State survives its toughest test | |
| Dan Mullen huddled Mississippi State in the visitor's locker room at halftime. The Bulldogs played their first 30 minutes in program history as the No. 1 team in the country. The label didn't describe their performance. MSU held a seven-point lead. "I said, 'Everybody take a deep breath,' " Mullen said. "They did. And that sigh in that room. I said, 'Good, it's done with, you've played. Now let's go out and play our football and start making plays.'" Mississippi State opened the second half with a 75-yard touchdown drive. |
| Robinson, No. 1 Mississippi State bowl over Kentucky | |
| The game was over, but Mississippi State tailback Josh Robinson had a message for his coach. Standing in the victory formation, MSU quarterback Dak Prescott prepared to take the Bulldogs' final snap to secure a rugged 45-31 victory against Kentucky at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday night. To Prescott's left was Robinson, who frantically gestured in the direction of MSU coach Dan Mullen and held up two fingers. Minutes after MSU's victory, its 10th straight and seventh in a row to open the season, Robinson was asked about his signals to Mullen. "I was telling him I needed two more yards," said Robinson, who finished the win with a career-high 198 yards on 19 carries. "I looked on the scoreboard and saw I had 198. I wanted to get 200." It was that kind of day for Robinson, the junior tailback known as "Bowling Ball" to his teammates and MSU's fans. Knowing his tailback, Mullen shot back with the perfect answer to Robinson's plea. |
| Hometown knew what Dak Prescott could do | |
| Haughton's head football coach pointed to a picture that sits on a shelf in the corner of his office. In it, the quarterback wears a white jersey with a red No. 6 on it and points his right arm toward the sky. On the wall in front of a desk across the room, past a couple of cowbells and a teddy bear dressed in a maroon Mississippi State hoodie, the same quarterback is in another picture. This time, Dak Prescott is wearing a maroon jersey with a white No. 15 on his chest. The nation knows No. 15. They know the Heisman candidate who has led Mississippi State to a 6-0 start and the No. 1 ranking. No. 6 is a stranger to most. He's the quarterback school after school passed over. But in Haughton, they believed. |
| Eulls leads strong defensive effort by Bulldogs | |
| Mississippi State defensive lineman Kaleb Eulls thought he had overrun the play. He was wrong. The 6-foot-3, 290-pound starting defensive tackle stopped his momentum late in the second quarter and reached up with one arm to bring down Kentucky quarterback Patrick Towles for the Bulldogs' first sack of the day. MSU delivered six more in the 45-31 victory to move from fourth in the Southeastern Conference in sacks to first with 28 in seven games. "I thought I missed him," Eulls said. "When I got my hand on him, I just held on. He's a big guy. I knew I couldn't let go." Eulls didn't let go, and he delivered the first blow of plenty delivered by the defensive line. The Yazoo County-born senior sacked Towles again in the second half and finished with two sacks to lead a MSU defense that saw six players combine for seven sacks. |
| Arkansas-Mississippi State to start at 6:15 p.m. | |
| A 6:15 p.m. kickoff time has been set for Saturday's Arkansas at Mississippi State game with the game to be broadcast by ESPN2. The Razorbacks take on the No. 1-ranked Bulldogs in a Southeastern Conference game in Starkville. Arkansas is 4-4 overall and 0-4 in the SEC while Mississippi State is 7-0 and 4-0 in conference play. |
| So Long, Computer Rankings; Hello, New Era of Bickering | |
 | It is an era of good feelings for the College Football Playoff: Most fans seem to prefer the idea of a committee deliberating and voting on the nation's top teams to the old system under the Bowl Championship Series, which infamously used computer rankings. "It's a very thoughtful process," Steve Wieberg, a member of the playoff's selection committee, said in an interview last week. The committee's first rankings are set to be released Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., though, so historians will most likely date the end of the era of good feelings to 7:31. Jeff Long, Arkansas's athletic director and the committee's chairman, will explain each week's rankings at a news conference, with the ballot count, as well as the individual ballots, remaining secret. Mississippi State, of the SEC, is the top team in The Associated Press's poll, released Sunday, and is almost certain to have a spot in the playoff committee's top four. |
| Nick Saban sold home to Crimson Tide Foundation for $3.1 million in 2013 | |
 | Ten weeks after the University of Alabama won the BCS National Championship game against Notre Dame in January 2013, a private foundation set up to help fund athletics at UA bought the Tuscaloosa home of Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban for nearly $3.1 million. The home, which Saban and his wife, Terry, bought in 2007 when they came to the university, was purchased by the Crimson Tide Foundation in March 2013. The Sabans continue to live in the 8,759-square-foot home, and the foundation has paid the property taxes on the home since the purchase. "It's not all that unusual in the world for universities to provide the housing," said Scott Phelps, assistant secretary of the foundation. "We want to keep him happy. We think he is the best coach in America." The four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom home has 8,759 square feet and sits on 1.26 acres. |
| Alabama men's basketball revenue, attendance is down | |
 | Men's basketball ticket revenue at the University of Alabama last season was down $330,222 from the previous season, according to data obtained by The Tuscaloosa News under open records laws. Actual attendance dropped nearly 38,000 from the previous season to less than 4,000 per game. By the end of last season, as UA was playing out the end of a 13-19 campaign, Coleman Coliseum was all but empty. Patrons could hear the echo of the ball bouncing on the hardwood floor. Anthony Grant, who is entering his sixth season as head coach at UA, believes that winning is the only solution. "At the end of the day it's wins and losses," Grant said. |
| Deputies: Alcohol, drugs and gun found in man's truck after LSU game | |
 | Sheriff's deputies say a Baton Rouge man, accused of drunken driving, crashed his truck into a trailer used for catering a tailgating party on LSU's campus after Saturday's game -- and deputies said that while searching his car, they found a gun, an open container of alcohol and a range of narcotics, according to court documents. William Andrepont, 22, had veered his Toyota truck off the road and into the catering trailer, according to the affidavit of probable cause. Inside his car was a hand-rolled joint in the car's ashtray, a partially finished 12-pack of beer with at least one can open, 12 Xanax pills, small amounts of morphine and hydrocodone, a digital scale and a loaded .45-caliber handgun, the affidavit says. Authorities arrested at least 13 people suspected of driving while intoxicated in East Baton Rouge Parish and booked them into Parish Prison between 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, booking records show. |
| Gretna man who died in Tiger Stadium was 'one heck of a fan,' brother says | |
 | Brian Tingley, the 59-year-old LSU fan from Gretna who died of natural causes in the stands of Tiger Stadium Saturday (Oct. 25), never missed a home game, his brother Ross Tingley said. "My brother was one heck of a (dedicated) fan," he said. Late in the fourth quarter of the LSU-Ole Miss game, Brian Tingley died of cardiovascular disease after experiencing chest pains and other symptoms consistent with a heart attack, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner William "Beau" Clark. A season ticket holder for 35 years, Brian Tingley, who lived in Gretna, cheered for the Tigers through good times and bad, his brother said. |
| Who made the 100-year decision to join the SEC? Texas A&M officials say it wasn't just Loftin | |
| Former Texas A&M Regent Chairman Richard Box easily can recall his days as a student when Aggie football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant left Kyle Field to lead Alabama's team, prompting a frantic -- and splintered -- search to find his replacement. That experience taught Box, A&M's 38th board chairman, that a single spokesperson should be appointed when a controversial and critical decision needs to be made, especially one as transformational as ripping away from the Big 12 conference. That's why we asked Dr. [R. Bowen] Loftin to serve as our spokesperson," Box said recently when asked by The Eagle to identify who the key players were in 2011 when Texas A&M made the final deal to leave behind longtime friends and competitors. Ultimately, it was the regents, led by Box, who called the shots, but the effort was far greater than any one person or group could claim responsibility for, according to Box, as well as several other current and former regents and A&M athletic department officials. Those sentiments stand in contrast to the narrative in Loftin's book, which gives him the majority of conference-switching credit. |
| Venturing inside the library at the U. of Oklahoma on gameday | |
| As the football game kicks off, the library is empty. Well, not entirely. There are, by unofficial count, four employees and four students, one of whom naps on a couch. A security guard plays video games on a computer. Here, in one stretch of the University of Oklahoma campus, is an intersection of major college sports and higher education. There's Memorial Stadium, packed with more than 80,000 clad in crimson, the interlocked OU everywhere, from tents to bedazzled T-shirts to cowboy hats and boots. It has to be the loudest place in the state of Oklahoma last Saturday. Then there's Bizzell Memorial Library, a national historic landmark located near the stadium and named after the university's fifth president, William Bennett Bizzell. It is possibly the quietest place in the Sooner State, where the silence is interrupted only by the roars of the crowd. |
| New lawsuit targets NCAA and every Division I school | |
 | The legal attacks on the NCAA and its limits on what athletes can receive while playing college sports have been spread across a much wider front with the filing of a lawsuit that names the NCAA and every Division I school as defendants. The suit -- filed last week in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, where the NCAA is headquartered -- alleges that the NCAA and the schools are violating the wage-and-hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The allegations are framed by the schools' employment of students in work-study positions that pay hourly wages. |
| Pressure Is Building for College Sports' Governing Body to Modernize Its Rules | |
 | Here in Indiana's capital, where the NCAA's headquarters are nestled in a sleepy state park between the city's military park and a zoo, there is no indication that this 100-year-old institution has been through the most tumultuous year of its existence, or that it might be fighting for its life. Outside these walls, however, the pressure couldn't be greater. This year, some of the most powerful members plotted a potential secession. A number of court battles being fought around the country threaten the organization's existence. And this summer, Emmert faced a Capitol Hill grilling in which a hostile panel peppered him with questions such as: "Why do you exist?" |
The Office of Public Affairs provides the Daily News Digest as a general information resource for Mississippi State University stakeholders.
Web links are subject to change. Submit news, questions or comments to Jim Laird.
