| Monday, June 8, 2015 |
| Mississippi State celebrates UAS center | |
 | Mississippi State University wanted to make a victory lap with Mississippi flare. And it was one that couldn't be contained on the ground. Researchers sent a small unmanned aerial vehicle soaring above the North Farm at the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park on Friday before a crowd of more than 100 spectators. The demonstration helped celebrate the Federal Aviation Administration's selecting MSU's Raspet Research Lab as the site for its Center of Excellence for UAS Research. "We won," Vice President for Research and Economic Development David Shaw said to start the celebration ceremony, which also featured MSU President Mark Keenum, Gov. Phil Bryant and newly-appointed Mississippi Development Authority director Glenn McCullough. |
| The sky is the limit at Mississippi State | |
 | Mississippi State University is the setting for a special announcement on Friday. It has everything to do with unmanned aerial systems. "We can fly these. We can manufacture them, but where do they go? Where's the highway? What's the speed? What's the fuel," said Governor Phil Bryant. Those are questions that will be answered at Mississippi State University where the FAA National Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems will be located. "We're in a leadership role around the world in unmanned aircraft systems and it's a huge opportunity for Mississippi economy," said Mississippi Development Authority Director Glenn McCullough, Jr. said. |
| Mississippi State Lauded for UAV Leadership | |
 | A celebratory press conference at the state's flagship research university had a decidedly Mississippi flavor Friday morning. State leaders joined Mississippi State senior leadership and researchers to discuss the university's lead role for the Federal Aviation Administration's new National Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. he six-year competitive effort to land the project was realized in May when the FAA announced the Mississippi State-led Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE) will operate the new national center. |
| Mississippi State expanding downtown offering | |
 | Mississippi State University President Dr. Mark Keenum said this week that renovation of the Alfred Rosenbaum Building -- formerly the Kress Building -- could be finished by the end of 2015 and operational by January 2016 in time for the spring semester. The Rosenbaum Building will house Mississippi State University-Meridian's new Kinesiology School, which will add to the university's downtown presence. MSU-Meridian's downtown campus includes the Riley Center and the Newberry Building, which houses the university's School of Business. The renovation is part of an $11 million project Mississippi State decided to undertake in order to expand its presence in Meridian. Keenum said the new Rosenbaum Building will not only house the Kinesiology School but also a new library. "It will have what we call a virtual library on the first floor," Keenum said at a meeting of the Meridian Rotary Club. "Anyone will be able to access any resource document or any book that is at the main library at Mississippi State in Starkville." Keenum said the addition of the library could help attract technology-centered businesses, while helping existing industry. |
| MSU Libraries to host 'A Conversation with the Kinseys' Thursday | |
| Owners of one of the world's largest private collections of African American art, artifacts, documents and manuscripts will return to Mississippi State for a special June 11 presentation. Free to all, "A Conversation with the Kinseys" will begin at 7 p.m. in the third-floor John Grisham Room. Sid Salter, MSU's chief communications officer, will serve as moderator for the presentation. Accompanied by their son Khalil, The Kinsey Collection owners Bernard and Shirley Kinsey will provide insight into their years of collecting and philanthropy, as well as discuss the significance of objects on display through June 20 in MSU's "African American Treasures" from The Kinsey Collection. |
| Ag development, tourism reinforce Delta Council mission | |
 | Gov. Phil Bryant, who introduced on May 29 the keynote speaker, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, noted that over the years he has learned that "if you want to get something done in the Delta go to the Delta Council." The council is a private organization with an annual budget of about $600,000 from membership dues, according to Executive Director Chip Morgan. In his remarks, Bryant observed that Mississippi State University will soon be home of the National Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, which will allow the agricultural industry to take advantage of global positioning satellites and unmanned aircraft for enhanced imagery to gather data for farmers. "It will only a matter of time before the precision-ag industry takes a quantum leap, with Mississippi... in the lead." |
| Unemployment rates drop through area | |
| Jobless rates continue to decline throughout the nation, a trend that is true not only of Mississippi as a whole, but of the Golden Triangle, too. The April unemployment statistics released by the Mississippi Department of Economic Security show that unemployment has dropped by a range of 0.9 percent to 1.3 percent throughout the Golden Triangle compared to March, and has dropped by a healthy range of 1.4 percent to 3.4 percent when compared to April 2014. Oktibbeha County's unemployment rate now matches the national rate of 5.1 percent and is 0.6 lower than the state average of 5.7 percent. |
| SSD files response to DOJ's issues with consolidation | |
| A response to numerous U.S. Department of Justice issues with consolidation filed by Starkville School District states identifying and busing students from Sudduth Elementary to a mostly African-American campus could push parents to opt for private school or homeschooling options. The school district, represented by noted desegregation attorney Holmes Adams, filed its answer Friday to the DOJ's May 22 report outlining numerous issues -- the preservation of a 94 percent African-American East Oktibbeha Elementary School, limited educational opportunities for county sixth graders and the process assigning and retaining faculty and staff -- with July 1's state-mandated SSD-Oktibbeha County School District merger. |
| Oktibbeha County tasks Slaughter and Associates with preparing subdivision rules | |
| Planner Mike Slaughter, of the Oxford-based Slaughter and Associates, is preparing new subdivision regulations for Oktibbeha County to ensure developers are responsible for any negative impact their projects inflict on area infrastructure in the future. Slaughter was tasked to draw up the rules Monday by county supervisors in a 4-1 vote. Only District 4 Supervisor Daniel Jackson opposed the motion. The board approved the resolution after months of issues and complaints emerged about the quality of Blackjack Road, a major thoroughfare linking the outlying county area, new student housing developments and Mississippi State University to Starkville and Highway 12. Development is a double-edged sword for the county. |
| New high school will prepare Golden Triangle students for variety of futures | |
| Jill Savely, principal of Golden Triangle Early College High School, says the new school's students are coming from a variety of economic backgrounds and their past academic performances vary. Savely spoke to the Columbus Exchange Club about the school during the club's weekly meeting last Thursday. The school -- which will open in the fall on the East Mississippi Community College campus in Mayhew -- has accepted an incoming freshman class of over 60 students from Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee Counties. The students will be able to earn college credits while in high school. |
| Airbus Helicopters names new leader | |
 | Airbus Helicopters Inc. has named Robert Boman as director/site manager for the company's Lowndes County helicopter assembly plant and operations. The Grand Prairie, Texas, company says in a news release that Boman is responsible for management and administration of the Columbus facility, including compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration and Defense Contract Management Agency regulatory agencies. |
| State May revenue collections slow | |
 | Disappointing state revenue collections for May -- $107.2 million below the estimate – could make it more difficult to collect the amount of money needed to fund the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1. The May shortfall leaves revenue $84.5 million below the final, official estimate for the current fiscal year through May. It does not appear revenue collections will fall far enough below the estimate to impact the budget for the current fiscal year. But in the complex world of state budgeting, if revenue collections are substantially below the estimate at the end of the current fiscal year on June 30, it means that the state essentially will be in a revenue hole as it starts the process of collecting taxes to fund the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. In other words, it will have farther to go to collect the taxes needed to meet the estimate for the upcoming fiscal year. |
| McCullough assumes MDA post Monday | |
| Glenn McCullough officially begins his tenure Monday as executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority. The former Tupelo mayor and Tennessee Valley Authority chairman already has begun the transition in the weeks since his appointment by Gov. Phil Bryant. "I have been doing work as a volunteer for MDA already," McCullough said last week. |
| Analysis: Local governments among losers from prison reform | |
| Should Mississippi gear its prison policy to produce free inmate labor for local governments? The answer that some sheriffs, county supervisors, lawmakers and others are giving seems to be yes. The fuss is over Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher's decision to shutter the Joint State County Work Program. It's a hangover from the Legislature's 2014 decision to reduce inmates in state prisons. Then, most people seemed happy about dialing back on prison sentences. Republicans wanted to spend less money on the Corrections Department and Democrats wanted fewer harsh sentences. |
| Kelly turns focus to Washington this week | |
| Days before Trent Kelly was scheduled to be sworn in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Saltillo resident still hadn't processed the accomplishment. Sitting in his campaign headquarters in Tupelo just two days after winning a special election for Mississippi's 1st District congressional seat, Kelly had one foot still in campaign mode and the other slowly stretching to Washington, D.C. Taking calls from supporters and wrapping up matters with his current district attorney's position were occupying any time that Kelly might have had to let the feeling of victory sink in. "I don't know that this will ever slow down enough for that feeling to sink in," Kelly said, laughing. |
| 3Qs: Kyle Steward, former congressional aide | |
| Kyle Steward, currently executive director of external affairs at Mississippi State University, spent many years as a congressional aide to Democratic U.S. Rep. G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery of Meridian and later to Republican U.S. Rep. and Sen. Roger Wicker of Tupelo. Steward answered questions from the Daily Journal's Joe Rutherford about what Trent Kelly can expect as he heads to Washington. |
| Seconds of video turned U.S. Senate race, may put blogger in prison | |
 | Clayton Thomas Kelly of Pearl shot a few seconds of video with his phone in a Madison nursing home on Easter Sunday 2014 that altered a U.S. Senate race, gained him national notoriety and may earn him a prison cell, depending on the outcome of his trial that starts this week. Kelly, now 29, was a computer customer service engineer who had gotten heavily into Libertarian politics. He started a "Constitutional Clayton" online blog and wanted to make a name for it with a juicy political story. He did. |
| Suicide rate of female military veterans is called 'staggering' | |
 | New government research shows that female military veterans commit suicide at nearly six times the rate of other women, a startling finding that experts say poses disturbing questions about the backgrounds and experiences of women who serve in the armed forces. Their suicide rate is so high that it approaches that of male veterans, a finding that surprised researchers because men generally are far more likely than women to commit suicide. "It's staggering," said Dr. Matthew Miller, an epidemiologist and suicide expert at Northeastern University who was not involved in the research. "We have to come to grips with why the rates are so obscenely high." It is not clear what is driving the rates. |
| 'Sesame Street' and its surprisingly powerful effects on how children learn | |
 | Most Americans born since the mid-1960s have a favorite "Sesame Street" skit. Jennifer Kotler Clarke watched hers on a black-and-white television set in her family's Bronx apartment. There were two aliens: One of them had long arms that didn't move, while the other had short, moving arms. The aliens wished to eat apples from a tree, and they succeeded, after a couple of minutes, by working together. "Let's call this cooperation," one of them says. "No," the other replies, "let's call it Shirley." Clarke grew up to be the show's vice president for research and evaluation, and she has long believed that the program's laughs and lessons stick with children. Now, landmark academic research appears to back her up. The most authoritative study ever done on the impact of "Sesame Street," to be released Monday, finds that the famous show on public TV has delivered lasting educational benefits to millions of American children -- benefits as powerful as the ones children get from going to preschool. |
| U. of Southern Mississippi's Joe Paul has a passion for helping students | |
 | Former University of Southern Mississippi President Aubrey Lucas has a favorite story about Vice President for Student Affairs Joe Paul. It occurred when Lucas' granddaughter was preparing to come to the university as a freshman. "She said she had a friend who was well connected -- who knew Joe Paul," Lucas said. "Her grandfather was president of the university, but the person to know was Joe Paul." Paul is retiring June 30, after nearly four decades employed with the university. He has spent all those years in jobs requiring interactions with students. "I've been giving students advice for 39 years," he said. "I found a passion for working with students." |
| New housing units at Mississippi College expected to open this fall | |
| The first new student housing at Mississippi College in 20 years is expected to enhance recruiting and retention by providing apartment-style housing rather than traditional residence halls and features like private rooms, high-speed Internet connectivity, electronic key systems and electronic security systems. MC's eight new $16-million apartment units that will provide housing for 189 students are expected to be substantially completed by July 17. Students will able to move in by late August. The housing provides many of the new bells and whistles in demand by students. As a private institution, the second-oldest Baptist college in the U.S. competes for students with both public and other private universities in Mississippi and in neighboring states. |
| Delta State awards diversity champion Georgene Clark | |
 | During the spring, the Diversity Committee at Delta State University in Cleveland awarded the inaugural Diversity Champion Award to Georgene Clark, retired assistant professor of English. The diversity award was established to recognize individuals and divisions/departments that have made extraordinary efforts over the past three years to promote diversity awareness at Delta State and the wider community. Clark met the following criteria for the award: innovative teaching/educational programming or activities designed to engender diversity within the classroom and/or curriculum at Delta State, documented record of committee work/community involvement or outreach to the local community by a campus organization or department or division, and active leader in promoting cultural diversity at Delta State. |
| Arkansas State University System Names Debra West Mid-South Chancellor | |
 | Arkansas State University System President Charles Welch announced Friday the selection of Debra West as chancellor of the ASU Mid-South campus. West is Forrest City native who served as deputy executive director for programs and accountability for Mississippi Community College Board since 2009. Before that, she was the board's associate executive director for workforce, career, and technical education and the director of postsecondary career and technical education. The MCCB is a state agency that oversees the 15 community and junior colleges in Mississippi. West was awarded a Ph.D. in community college leadership from Mississippi State University. |
| Auburn University's Pebble Hill to be renovated thanks to philanthropic gift | |
 | Pebble Hill, an 1847 antebellum cottage on Debardeleben Street in Auburn will be renovated to honor its mid-1800s origins thanks to a philanthropic donation to Auburn University. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Pebble Hill, also known as the Scott-Yarbrough House, currently serves as home to the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities, part of Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts. As part of the project, a companion building designed to complement the main building will include an assembly room capable of seating 100 people, as well as administrative office space. The renovation and building project will allow Pebble Hill to once again conduct on-site programming, especially conferences, exhibitions, book talks and lectures. |
| Auburn University student crowned Miss Alabama | |
 | Auburn University graduate student Meg McGuffin was crowned Miss Alabama in Homewood on Saturday. McGuffin is a native of Ozark who was previously crowned Miss Phenix City. She will compete in the Miss America Pageant this September in Atlantic City. Her platform is "Healthy Is The New Skinny." McGuffin said she wants to be known as a personable Miss Alabama. |
| Analysis: LSU's Alexander among top-paid presidents nationally | |
 | With a $600,000 annual salary, LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander ranks in the top 10 percent of public university presidents in the nation in base pay. The Chronicle of Higher Education released its annual national report on college presidents' pay on Sunday. According to the Chronicle's analysis, the typical public college president earned about $428,000 in fiscal 2014 -- nearly 7 percent more than the previous year. According to the data, Alexander was by far the highest-paid public higher-education leader in Louisiana. According to his contract, $425,000 of Alexander's salary comes from the university, while the rest is paid by the university's fundraising foundations. |
| LSU professor struck by pickup and killed while walking her broken bicycle | |
| An LSU professor was killed Sunday when she was struck by a pickup truck on La. 952 in East Feliciana Parish, State Police said. Elisabeth Oliver, 63, was walking in the southbound lane of La. 952 about noon after the bicycle she had been riding had mechanical problems, according to a State Police news release. A pickup truck, driven by 79-year-old Jessie Banguel, of Clinton, came out of a right-hand curve also in the southbound lane of La. 952 and began to go up a hill when it struck Oliver, State Police said. Oliver was taken to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. |
| U. of Florida eyeing $300 million budget surplus | |
| It's still a long way from final, but a larger than expected influx of government grants and private donations could result in a $282 million surplus for the University of Florida this year. That's the difference between preliminary budget estimates of December and the final operating budget estimates for June, based on revenue and spending projections from all departments across the university. Because department heads tend to be conservative, they were projecting $4 billion in revenues back in December. But current projections anticipate $5 billion in revenues, budget officials shared with the UF Board of Trustees. |
| U. of Florida gets $2 million grant to study cottonwoods | |
 | The University of Florida has received a four-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop better methods of predicting traits in the Eastern Cottonwood tree, officials announced. "We're thrilled that our previous work in this area has put us in a position to win this critical grant to help us bridge some important gaps in trait prediction," team leader Matias Kirst, an associate professor with the UF School of Forest Research and Conservation, said in a news release. |
| Proposal to drug test members of University of Missouri Greek life dropped | |
 | Fraternity representatives at the University of Missouri have dropped a proposal to drug test live-in members of sorority and fraternity houses. The proposal was one of four -- along with banning all alcohol at fraternity parties except beer, banning out-of-town formals and barring women from fraternities on weekend nights -- put together by the Mizzou Fraternity Alumni Consortium to combat sexual assault. MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin asked the Alumni Consortium to draft the proposals. University officials declined to make him available for comment, and on Twitter he has diverted questions to the Alumni Consortium. |
| Executive Compensation at Public and Private Colleges | |
 | As of June 8, 2015, The Chronicle's executive-compensation package has been updated with 2014 fiscal-year data on public-college presidents. This update provides data on 238 chief executives at 220 public universities and systems in the United States. The median salary for presidents who served a full year is $428,250. Two presidents earned more than $1 million. The most recent data on private-college presidents is from 2012, and includes information on 537 chief executives from 497 private nonprofit colleges. That year 36 presidents earned at least $1 million. |
| Benefits Grow for Public University Presidents, Survey Finds | |
 | Even with college costs and student debt in the national spotlight, the pay packages -- and especially the benefits -- of public university presidents continue to grow. The median salary for public university presidents was $428,250 in the 2014 fiscal year, up about 7 percent from the previous year, according to an annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education. But it is not only the money that is substantial. "This year, we took a close look at the perks and benefits, and found that 80 percent of these presidents are getting housing and cars," said Sandhya Kambhampati, a reporter at The Chronicle who compiled the data. "There were also presidents who got maid service, personal trainers and food stipends. The list of benefits has grown from previous years." |
| Education Department steps up oversight of companies hired by colleges | |
 | Colleges in recent years have increasingly turned to outside companies to manage parts of the financial aid process and provide other services to students. And the boom in outsourcing now has federal regulators racing to keep up. The Education Department is beefing up its oversight over the hundreds of different companies that colleges hire for a wide range of services that it says are somehow related to federal student aid dollars and therefore subject to regulation. That includes things as mundane as document processing as well as innovative platforms that colleges use to track student financial aid and provide loan counseling to students. Department officials have set up a new process for tracking these companies, which they're responsible for regulating but have had trouble identifying in some cases. |
| BILL CRAWFORD (OPINION): Mississippi communities need to guard their military bases | |
 | Syndicated columnist Bill Crawford of Meridian writes: "The challenges to cutting military spending are not new. Budget cutting efforts in the early 1990s caused Congress so many headaches it created the independent Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. ...Insiders expect this Congress will resort to the BRAC process within two years to make cuts to military spending. No doubt concerns about a future BRAC were part of the reason Columbus Air Force Base responded publicly last week to a July 2014 article in the Air Force Times. ...Mississippi communities with bases need to act now to head off such negative issues... just in case." |
| PAUL HAMPTON (OPINION): Measures that are bad for truckers, roads, other drivers, can't hide in bill | |
| The Sun Herald's Paul Hampton writes: " Give a man a fish, the saying goes, and you'll feed him for a day. Give a congressman a bad idea, and he'll bury it in the bowels of unrelated legislation -- then eat a steak dinner courtesy of a lobbyist. I can't think of a worse idea than putting more sleepy truck drivers on the road. But a congressman thinks it's such a good idea, she buried it deep in the Transportation and HUD appropriations bill. I already avoid the interstates when possible -- partly because of the big rigs, partly because I'd rather see the country than have it flash by my window in a blur. ...One reason I don't usually mind sharing the road is I figure the government is watching over the truck drivers, too -- making sure the loads aren't too heavy, the equipment unsafe or the drivers are overly sleepy. But advocates for truck safety worry government oversight is eroding." |
| LLOYD GRAY (OPINION): Kelly's could be a long ride in 1st District | |
| The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal's Lloyd Gray writes: "Some elements of Trent Kelly's new job aren't really that attractive. He'll have to be in a perpetual fundraising and campaign mode with re-election coming up every two years. Since he's filling an unexpired term, he's got only about seven months before he has to gear it up again for his 2016 re-election. He'll be shuttling back and forth from Washington, meeting himself coming and going. And he'll be one of 435 in the U.S. House of Representatives as opposed to the leader of an office of prosecutors as district attorney. But there are advantages." |
| GEOFF PENDER (OPINION): Handicapping the red-blue battle for the state House | |
| The Clarion-Ledger's Geoff Pender writes: "Mississippi House races were historically parochial affairs, with shoe leather, kissing babies and yard signs winning the day for candidates. But 2011 marked a sea change, with state parties, PACs and outside interests pumping in money and bombarding voters with ads and robo-calls. Expect more of the same this year. The state Democratic Party and its interests are vowing to take back the House majority and leadership it lost in 2011. The state Republican Party and its interests are vowing to increase its hold on the House to a supermajority. This would prevent the Democratic minority from being able to block taxing and spending bills that require three-fifths for passage. While each is mathematically possible, neither is likely to happen. But the stakes are still high." |
| SID SALTER (OPINION): MDOC and 'trickle down' economics | |
| Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: "I'm not particularly surprised that Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher is stepping on the toes of local and county government leaders as he attempts to clean up the mess in operating the state's prison system left behind by the corruption-riddled regime of former Commissioner Chris Epps. Fisher is the former Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics director who bucked strident opposition from drug manufacturers, politicians, lobbyists and libertarians to get tough legislation passed in the state that required a prescription for law-abiding citizens to purchase pseudoephedrine (a common cold and sinus medicine) as a means to battle the state's methamphetamine epidemic five years ago." |
SPORTS
| Mississippi State looks to benefit from extra SEC revenue | |
| There was a moment, several actually, during Mississippi State's rise to the top of the college football world last fall when MSU Director of Athletics Scott Stricklin took a second to look around him and soak in everything that was happening. "I think back to the Texas A&M game, in the second half when we had things in hand," said Stricklin from his office at the Bryan Building on MSU's campus. "Looking around at the expanded stadium and realizing what was happening with our football team, it was amazing. And then the next week, the Auburn game that shot us to No. 1. It was a magical moment." Such is life for Stricklin, who has led MSU's athletic department for the past five years. And, thanks to moments like the aforementioned wins last October, not to mention the profitable position of being tied to the Southeastern Conference, life is good within the MSU Athletic Department. |
| Mississippi State's recruiting class could be special if it survives MLB draft | |
| In the midst of the worst 21-game stretch in the history of Mississippi State baseball, John Cohen held faith within his program. The Bulldogs traveled to No. 1 Texas A&M. Cohen saw similarities between the top team in the country and his squad that was 1-4 on the road heading into the series. "I kind of feel like in some respect we're right there," Cohen said before the early April series. "That's where our club is. Everything hasn't come together yet, but you know it will." Last week, in an end-of-season press conference, the seventh-year coach echoed the same confidence for a team that finished 24-30 and missed the postseason for the first time since 2010. Some of that belief comes from what Cohen believes is one of the best incoming freshmen classes in the country. It has to survive the three-day, 40-round MLB Draft that begins on Monday first. |
| Bulldogs wait to see how MLB draft plays out | |
| Mississippi State may have finished last in the Southeastern Conference standings in 2015, but coach John Cohen likes the makeup of his club for next season. All Cohen has to do now is get them to campus. This week's MLB Draft could take its toll on the Bulldogs roster for 2016 with several signees and underclassmen expected to be selected during the three-day event which begins today. "We feel like we're in as good of a position as we can possibly be," Cohen said. "If this entire class shows up, I think it can be one of the best classes in the country, if not the best class in the country. We'll see what happens." |
| New baseballs affected Mississippi State more than expected | |
| A team doesn't lose 18 of its last 21 games without some bad luck. Mississippi State finished 24-30 after beginning the season 13-0. "I'm not a big believer in the luck part because I believe you make your luck," MSU coach John Cohen said. At any rate, Mississippi State experienced bad timing in 2015 with the introduction of new baseballs. The NCAA introduced a baseball for the 2015 season that contained smaller, flatter seams. The idea was to generate more offense. The variation to the seams allowed for fly balls to travel farther. They also made it more difficult for pitchers to create movement off the mound. With lower seams, pitchers weren't able to created as much friction as they had in the past. "I think it affected us a little bit differently than other people because of the nature our ballpark plays," Cohen said. "Everybody on our team who is successful is a sinker-oriented type of pitcher." |
| HUGH KELLENBERGER (OPINION): After Dak, SEC starting QBs TBD | |
| The Clarion-Ledger's Hugh Kellenberger writes: "SEC Media Days is next month, and Mississippi State's Dak Prescott is going to be the runaway choice for preseason All-SEC quarterback. And if Prescott is the no-doubt No. 1, who is the No. 2 quarterback in the league? It's either Auburn's Jeremy Johnson, who has thrown all of 78 passes during two years as Nick Marshall's backup, or Tennessee's Joshua Dobbs. The latter has some Prescott vibes to him..." |
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