| Thursday, October 31, 2019 |
| Local leaders celebrate Locksley Way | |
 | A ribbon cutting ceremony commemorating the Locksley Way project completed earlier this year was jointly held Tuesday by city, county and university officials. The project added the state of Mississippi's first two lane bike track. It was also the first joint project undertaken by the city of Starkville, Oktibbeha County and Mississippi State University where the county took the lead on a TAP grant project. Supervisor Bricklee Miller of District 4 pitched the project as one of her first acts after being elected to the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors four years ago. "It just led the way when we started the term that way, with us working together," Miller said. "Working together is the way to make our community a better place to live." |
| Ag commissioner candidates agree on the need for locally produced food, differ on best approach | |
 | In their bids to head the Department of Agriculture and Commerce this November, incumbent Andy Gipson and his Democratic challenger Rickey Cole agree on the importance of local food. It's their approaches to bridging Mississippi producers and consumers that diverge. Gipson, the Republican nominee who has led the agency since April 2018, frequently touts the new "Genuine MS" branding program that helps consumers more readily identify Mississippi-made products. Cole, a former chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party, has floated a different solution: removing the 7 percent grocery tax on foods produced in Mississippi. Gipson said bolstering the state's agricultural workforce is also a priority of his. There are 15,000 unfilled agriculture jobs in state, Gipson said, referencing a report he commissioned from Mississippi State University research center NSPARC. |
| Trump visit to bring crowds, congestion and traffic delays in Tupelo | |
 | Anyone who expects to be anywhere near downtown Tupelo Friday should expect congested traffic and the possibility of long delays. President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at the BancorpSouth Arena around 7 p.m. Nov. 1 during a campaign rally for Mississippi gubernatorial candidate Tate Reeves. "President Trump's events typically draw large crowds and I expect there will be major delays," said Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton. "We don't know when the crowds will get here. "There could be heavy traffic as early as 7 a.m., so parents should allow extra time to get their children to school." When the president's plane lands and Trump travels from the airport to the coliseum, roads will be closed, possibly along multiple routes. "We can't discuss the routes," said Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre. "When the plane gets close, about 10 minutes before landing, we will start closing roads along the route." |
| Reeves still outspending Hood in Mississippi governor race | |
 | Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves has spent more than twice as much as Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood in the open race for Mississippi governor. Candidates' deadline to file periodic campaign finance reports was Tuesday, a week before the state's Nov. 5 election. The reports show money raised and spent through Oct. 26. Reeves has spent more than $10.8 million this year, and he had nearly $2.2 million left in his campaign accounts. Hood has spent more than $5.2 million this year, and he had nearly $567,000 remaining. Hood and Reeves are among the candidates scheduled to speak Thursday in Jackson at Hobnob, an informal gathering of business people hosted by the state chamber of commerce, Mississippi Economic Council. |
| Hood outraises Reeves in final weeks of election thanks to big checks from national group | |
 | Democrat Jim Hood raised substantially more money than Republican Tate Reeves in Mississippi's gubernatorial race this month, thanks to $1.35 million in donations from a single national political action committee. Reeves still has more money to spend in the final push before Tuesday's election. The lieutenant governor had more than $2.2 million remaining across several accounts, after raising about $1.5 million and spending $2.5 million since the start of October, according to campaign finance reports posted Tuesday evening. Hood has $1.2 million to spend. The attorney general raised almost $2 million -- about $500,000 more than Reeves -- and spent $2.1 million the past month. The fundraising haul was thanks in large part to two massive checks from the Democratic Governors Association PAC, one for $1.25 million. |
| The State of Play in Gubernatorial Races | |
| The presidential race is getting -- and will continue to get -- the lion's share of the attention in politics. But more than a dozen gubernatorial seats will be contested between now and November 2020, with potentially profound impacts on policy. Each of the three states holding gubernatorial contests in 2019 qualify in our ratings as competitive: We rate Mississippi lean Republican and Louisiana and Kentucky as tossups. Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves prevailed in a GOP primary and a runoff, and he now faces long-serving Democratic state Attorney General Jim Hood. Hood is the best possible candidate the Democrats could be running -- he's a populist conservative and a rare Democrat to win statewide office in Mississippi in recent years. He's also running a well-funded campaign against Reeves, who has a reputation for prickliness. A wild card: A candidate must win both a majority of the popular vote and a majority of legislative districts, which will be a difficult hurdle for Hood. |
| Mississippi governor's race fact check: What's true, what's not in ads | |
 | Gubernatorial candidates Tate Reeves and Jim Hood have released a flurry of new television attack ads in recent weeks, as well as online advertising on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. And more are coming: They have purchased more than a combined $1 million in ad time through Election Day. A Hood ad titled "Traveling" attacks Reeves for traveling too much, suggesting he's wasting taxpayer money via a "state limo, a state plane," and attending events such as a rock concert and Mardi Gras while on state business. (The state "limo" is in reality an SUV.) But viewers probably aren't aware that as lieutenant governor, Reeves -- along with Gov. Phil Bryant and House Speaker Philip Gunn -- often have a state security detail with them, according to state policy. Officers with the Mississippi Highway Patrol's Executive Protection Division perform this duty. The state policy on the matter states officers "will accompany these officials in all their political, public, and private travels and appearances, both in-state and out-of-state." Yet a separate statement from the Department of Public Safety suggests -- despite the policy's language -- that Reeves, Bryant and Gunn can opt out of the security detail when they want. |
| Governor's Race: Hood Fixates on Corruption As Reeves Avoids Interviews | |
| Just four months after Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood stood on the Chickasaw County Courthouse steps in Houston, Miss., and bemoaned the town's dwindling emergency-care options, local resident Shyteria Shardae suffered an asthma attack. The 23-year-old woman's friends tried to take her to the local hospital, but while they were en route, a 911 operator told them to turn around and head to the fire department instead. The town's only emergency room, the operator told them, had closed its doors in 2014. Shardae, who was pregnant when she died, left behind a 1-year-old child. "It's just like something from a third-world country," Hood told the Jackson Free Press in an interview at his campaign headquarters in late September. He seemed visibly frustrated over what he sees as a stark example of the kind of senseless tragedy that Mississippi's leaders could have prevented. Hood, along with a growing number of Republicans and hospital groups, blame the State of Mississippi's rejection of billions in federal dollars to expand the state's Medicaid program. Since 2013, Hood's current Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, has rejected $5 billion in expansion funds, largely because the money is part of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that former President Barack Obama signed into law. |
| Tate Reeves stumps for votes in DeSoto County | |
 | Candidates are pushing hard for votes in the final days before the 2019 general election is held across the state of Mississippi. On the minds of most voters is the race to replace outgoing Gov. Phil Bryant for the state's highest office. Republican Lt. Gov Tate Reeves is challenged by Democrat Attorney General Jim Hood on the Nov. 5 ballot. Both candidates have crisscrossed the state seeking voter support while trying to sway uncommitted voters to support them. At the same time, Reeves and Hood want those who already support them to vote on Election Day and get others to do likewise. Such was the case for Reeves Oct. 29 in Southaven when he stopped at his DeSoto County campaign headquarters on Stateline Road for a "Get Out The Vote" cook out with his support base in the county. "We are going to win the election on Tuesday, but it is going to be close," Reeves said. "Turnout is the key. We know here in DeSoto County that if we have a large turnout, if we have a lot of people go vote, that means Republicans win." |
| Tate Reeves visits the Gulf Coast | |
 | Tate Reeves, a Republican candidate for governor, held a news conference Wednesday on the Gulf Coast. Reeves addressed several issues including education, taxpayer money, and increasing advertising dollars for tourism in Mississippi. Reeves says if elected he will appoint a dedicated Coast leader in the office of governor, someone who will primarily work to increase the Gulf Coast economy. He talked about his role in getting the BP money and if those funds should go only to the Coast. Reeves says, "The fact is we thought to get every penny of the BP money to the Coast and the attorney general has sent over $100 million to trial lawyers that should've been spent across Mississippi." |
| May, Smith discuss teacher pay, jobs in race for House District 84 | |
 | After growing up as one of nine children, Roy May said he understands what it takes to make a living and raise a family. With losses in industry, the people in House District 84 need more options for jobs, May said. District 84 covers most of Clarke County and the eastern section of Newton County and Jasper County. "When I was a kid there was several industries there in Clarke County," he said. "I think that we can do better, try to bring some jobs in." May, a business owner and retired MDOT engineer, is running as an Independent for House District 84 in the Nov. 5 general election against Republican Troy Smith. He would also support pay raises for teachers and more state funding for school systems, he said. Smith, who has served on the Clarke County Board of Supervisors since 2012, agreed education was a top issue for the district. "We need to keep education strong for our economic development," he said. "Our teachers need to get an increase in salary." |
| Bipartisan group reveals agricultural worker immigration bill | |
 | A bipartisan group of House members revealed an immigration bill to prop up the dwindling agricultural labor base by regularizing the status of foreign-born workers. The bill, presented by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), and Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) has the support of 24 Democrats and 20 Republicans. The bipartisan agreement was hashed out over months of talks after farmers reached out to lawmakers on both sides demanding more access to labor. Rep. Luis Correa (D-Calif.) told The Hill that poultry producers reached out to him after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in Mississippi in August led to the arrest of more than 600 undocumented workers in seven plants. Correa said poultry producers and others in the agricultural industry were unable to fill the jobs, leading them to cut production in some cases. |
| After ICE Came to Morton, Mississippi | |
| Morton, Mississippi, a quiet city of a few thousand residents, lies around forty miles east of Jackson, on the edge of Bienville National Forest. Tito Echiburu, the senior vice-president of finance at the Bank of Morton, has lived in the town since 1973. In the nineteen-sixties, he was a top junior tennis player in Chile. He got a scholarship to play at Mississippi State University, where he ended up studying business and accounting. A few years after graduating, he took a job as a tennis pro at a country club in Jackson, where he met John Rogers, whose father founded B. C. Rogers Poultry, one of several companies that operated chicken-processing plants in and around Morton. When John took over the company, after his father's death, he asked Echiburu, who had returned to Chile, to become the company's chief financial officer. Echiburu's young family moved back to Mississippi, and they became, he believes, "the first Hispanic family" in Morton. Today, around one in four residents of the town speaks Spanish or a language indigenous to Central or South America. |
| Wicker, Hyde-Smith lead effort to expand telehealth services | |
| U.S. Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith joined a bipartisan effort to expand telehealth services through Medicare as a means to improve health outcomes, make it easier for patients to connect with their doctors, and help cut costs for patients and providers. The Mississippi lawmakers, who serve on a Senate telehealth working group, are original cosponsors of the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies for Health Act of 2019. The bill was unveiled at a news conference on Wednesday. "Telehealth has enabled more people to connect to quality care than ever before, helping to lower costs and improve outcomes," Wicker said. "This bipartisan legislation recognizes the success of telehealth programs in states like Mississippi, builds on past legislative achievements, and advances access to lifesaving tools for more Americans." The University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson has been a national leader in telehealth for more than a decade. UMMC is one of more than 110 organizations endorsing the CONNECT for Health Act. |
| Obama Says Democrats Don't Always Need To Be 'Politically Woke' | |
 | A former aide to Barack Obama said that concerns the former president raised about ideological "purity" were aimed at explaining that governing requires having conversations that include people whose values you may not share. Speaking Tuesday at an Obama Foundation summit in Chicago, Obama said that he worries that some in the Democratic Party's left flank are too worried about ideological "purity" among their fellow Democrats. "This idea of purity, and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke, and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama said. "The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws." "Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or used the wrong verb ... then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Because man, you see how woke I was," Obama said. "You know, that's not activism. That's not bringing about change." |
| 'You're still running' from us: Michelle Obama warns against lasting issues with 'white flight' | |
 | Michelle Obama is lamenting the scarring effects "white flight" had on her and her community as a kid. Elaborating on a topic she stressed in her 2018 book "Becoming" Tuesday at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, Obama recalled moving with her family as a kid to a neighborhood in the Windy City with better schools. As more black families joined the neighborhood, she recalled, more white families began leaving. "Upstanding families like ours, who were doing everything we were supposed to do and better -- as we moved in, white folks moved out, because they were afraid of what our families represented," Obama said. "I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because I want to remind white folks that y'all were running from us. This family, with all the values you read about: you ran from us. And you're still running." Obama, who grew up in the South Side of Chicago in the 1970s, recalled feeling people "dis-investing" in her and her community: schools and parks had started to deteriorate, and the kids knew why. |
| Twitter drops all political ads in shot at Mark Zuckerberg | |
 | Twitter will no longer run political ads, CEO Jack Dorsey announced on Wednesday in a shot across the bow at Facebook, which faces rising heat over its policy of allowing candidates to lie in their campaign messaging. The move drew quick praise from Democrats including Hillary Clinton, who called it "the right thing to do for democracy in America and all over the world." But it provoked an immediate rebuke from President Donald Trump's campaign, which denounced it as "yet another attempt to silence conservatives." In a series of tweets, Dorsey portrayed the move as an attempt to protect democracy against moneyed interests engaging in deliberate deception. Twitter is removing itself from the contentious tangle embroiling Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg as U.S. political campaigns prepare to spend vast sums of money on online advertising around the 2020 elections. |
| Fed cuts rates for a 3rd time, signals it will now pause | |
| The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate Wednesday for the third time this year to try to sustain the economic expansion in the face of global threats. But the nation's central bank indicated that it won't cut again in the coming months unless the economic outlook worsens. The Fed's move reduces the short-term rate it controls -- which influences many consumer and business loans -- to a range between 1.5 percent and 1.75 percent. A statement the Fed released after its latest policy meeting removed a key phrase that it has used since June to indicate a future rate cut is likely. And at a news conference, chairman Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed will now pause unless the economic picture darkens. "If developments emerge that would cause a material reset of our outlook," Powell said, "we will respond appropriately." |
| Past Never Dead: UM Academic Freedom In Limbo? | |
| "You better watch your back. I'm coming for you," a voice growled through the receiver. The caller then hung up, leaving Dr. James Thomas alone in his University of Mississippi office with the anodyne tones of his phone's voicemail. "You have eighty-nine unread messages," it said. The man who promised to hunt Thomas down wasn't the only one to threaten his life, just the only one the FBI treated as a credible threat. The bureau traced the call back to Florida, then dropped the matter after a brief investigation. The emails came in at a quicker clip, hundreds by the end of the month. The road from that post to the eruption of rage spilling out of Thomas' phone traveled from conservative social-media groups to Fox News, another horror story about radical professors and their corrupting influence on the youth of America. But Thomas is adamant that the escalating focus on his tweet began with then-Ole Miss Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter on social media. "I condemn statements that encourage acts of aggression," Vitter wrote about Thomas' tweets. "His Facebook post was the catalyst," Thomas said. |
| USM Children's Center for Communication and Development hosts bake sale | |
 | The Children's Center for Communication and Development at the University of Southern Mississippi campus held their annual bake sale Wednesday. They had sweet treats and homemade goods, such as popcorn hands, cookies, brownies and more. The money they raised is part of the Give Back campaign for United Way of Southeast Mississippi. The center is a free resource for children from the ages of birth to 5 years old. They offer education and help reaching important milestones. The bake sale will continue Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. |
| Pearl River Community College uses EDA grant for new Hancock County facility | |
 | A $2 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration is being matched with state and federal funding as Pearl River Community College adds a new program in Hancock County. There's going to be a lot of construction taking place in the next couple of years as Pearl River Community College builds its Aviation and Aerospace Technology facility at Stennis International Airport. PRCC President Adam Breerwood said this not only enhances the college's footprint in Hancock County, but it will also provide more skilled employees for the workforce. "We're hoping this project not only serves as an economic engine but also a recruiting resource to bring companies into our area to know they'll have the appropriate workforce to succeed," Breerwood said. "We've had a lot of local and state leadership, even on the federal level, that really got behind our project, and now we're really starting to see the fruits of that labor. We're looking forward to getting that new facility built and get those doors open to better serve the people of our region." |
| Students say prof's online posts indicative of anti-LGBTQ culture in Auburn | |
| Heather Mann sat in her calculus class at Auburn and heard the boys ridicule "those homosexuals," those people who would burn in hell, they said, who would feel the wrath of the world if they ever dared to love beyond the confines of a man and a woman. Mann, a junior in mechanical engineering, was wearing a rainbow pin on her shirt. She had been wearing it all year. "I'd have to listen to them making horrible jokes about gay people, transgender people, saying slurs as if they were like any other word you can throw around," Mann said. Bruce Murray, an associate professor in the College of Education, has been working at the University since 1996. Murray specializes in reading education and has tenure. A number of students, including some who have been in his class, have come to The Plainsman and said that they're troubled by Murray's posts on his once-public Facebook account, which was made private in the middle of the reporting of this story. |
| U. of South Carolina has been tracking website visitors to help boost enrollment | |
 | The University of South Carolina has been tracking those who visit its website to better target potential students, documents show. Those who visit USC's website, sc.edu, can expect the pages they visit and the time spent on each page to be extracted using "cookies" and packaged in a data file. "Tools like these help colleges and universities be more efficient and effective, reach specific enrollment goals and better serve prospective students," USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said. Since 2017, USC has paid Capture, LLC, which is based in Louisville, K.Y., $170,000 to collect and package the data, according to USC's online spending transparency website. "Capture helps our recruitment efforts by letting us know what students are looking for on our site and what they're drilling down to in their search for information," USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said. "The goal is to gain insight about what kinds of questions our students and prospective students have, which will help us better communicate with them." |
| Faculty union, U. of Florida battling over $2M competition prize | |
 | Instead of celebrating their win at a national competition, two University of Florida engineering professors are now at odds with the school, which they say violated the faculty union contract by claiming ownership to a $2 million prize. The United Faculty of Florida filed a complaint with the state labor board for making a change to its competition prize policy without going through the union's bargaining process, said attorney Eric Lindstrom, who represents the faculty union. "An employer cannot change a worker's condition without changing the contract," he said. "They quickly, just unilaterally, made that change." Earlier this month, group of engineering students and faculty won the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Spectrum Collaboration Challenge, a three-year tournament sponsored by the United States Department of Defense in which teams, including UF's GatorWings, competed to develop a wireless radio network that uses artificial intelligence. |
| Report shows inequities in Missouri higher education | |
 | Missouri college students face serious achievement gaps based on race, income, parents' education and sometimes gender, a report from the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development revealed. "It's not very uplifting data," said Erik Anderson, director of innovation and performance for the department. "It's fairly depressing." But the fact that Missouri is willing to recognize the severity of the problem could be the key to finding solutions, Anderson suggested during his presentation at the first Equity in Missouri Higher Education Summit. During the summit, participants discussed way to improve equity. Now, the next steps are to identify which can be put into practice and who should take responsibility for them. The report defines equity as "the idea that a student's life circumstances should not dictate chances of success." |
| New data on the 36 million Americans who left college without a credential | |
 | College leaders and policy makers are paying more attention to the millions of adults in the U.S. who attended college but didn't earn a credential. Yet many questions remain about this population -- not just how to better recruit and serve them, but who they are. A newly released report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center helps fill in some of the blanks. The nonprofit group used data from institutions that collectively account for 97 percent of the nation's postsecondary enrollments. It was able to track individual students across institutional boundaries, including when they left college and if they later enrolled at another institution. The result is an unusually extensive view of the "educational trajectories" of the 36 million Americans the center identified who left college without receiving a degree or certificate. Several experts said the findings have wide implications for colleges, systems and federal and state policy makers. |
| Ph.D.-turned-policy insider takes over world's largest science society | |
| Sudip Parikh has helped shape U.S. science policy as a staffer on a powerful congressional spending panel. He's been a senior health care executive for a large nonprofit organization that manages several federal research facilities. And in January 2020, the 46-year-old structural biologist will become the new CEO of AAAS (which publishes Science) as the 171-year-old association pursues its mission to advance science and serve society. Parikh is now a senior vice president at the Drug Information Association, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit whose 12,000 members share a common interest in drug development. He spent 8 years as part of the Senate appropriations committee before joining Battelle in 2009. The son of Indian immigrants who worked in the textile and furniture manufacturing plants of North Carolina, Parikh entered the University of North Carolina as a journalism major before switching into materials science and then to structural biology. In 2000, he received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California. |
| Paul Simon Study Abroad Act Reintroduced to House | |
| Representatives Cheri Bustos (IL-17) and John Katko (NY-24) recently reintroduced the bipartisan Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Program Act. The bill would establish a competitive grant program, run by the Department of Education, for colleges and universities to expand study abroad opportunities for undergraduate students. It is named after the late Illinois senator Paul Simon, who encouraged Congress to come together and prepare the next generation of Americans with the global knowledge and skills needed in an increasingly interconnected world. "The U.S. needs to vastly and rapidly increase the number and diversity of its students studying abroad. The Simon Act would help do exactly that," said Association of Public and Land-grant Universities president Peter McPherson. |
| State elections will be held November 5 | |
| Mississippi newspaper publisher and columnist Wyatt Emmerich writes: State Elections are just around the corner, November 5. It will be interesting to see if the Republican Party can continue dominating Mississippi politics despite population stagnation and weak economic growth compared to the rest of the nation. The kooky, radical left-wing proposals of the current crop of Presidential Democratic candidates are not helping their Mississippi colleagues, most of whom tend to be far more conservative. Such is one of the pitfalls of the two-party system operating on a national and state level. The current two-party system is very competitive nationally, with control constantly shifting back and forth. But it often leads to one-party domination at the state level. The Democratic Party's domination of California is one example. The Republican Party's domination of Mississippi is another. Competition is the key to progress, so I hate to see one party dominate. I didn't like it when the Democratic Party had an ironclad hold over the Mississippi government, and I don't particularly like the current Republican domination. |
SPORTS
| Bulldogs enter season ranked No. 10 | |
| Mississippi State's women's basketball program begins the 2019-20 campaign ranked No. 10 in the Associated Press Poll released on Wednesday. Vic Schaefer's Bulldogs returns three starters from last season's 33-3 team. State is coming off back-to-back Southeastern Conference championships and three straight Elite Eight appearances. MSU has been ranked in the AP Top 25 for 95 consecutive weeks, the longest such stretch in program history. The Bulldogs have also been inside the top 10 for 59 straight weeks. It marks the fifth straight year that Mississippi State has been ranked within the top 25 to start the season. |
| Mississippi State coach Joe Moorhead on scrutiny, life in the SEC West | |
| Joe Moorhead is no stranger to tough questions. During Wednesday's SEC Teleconference, he faced another: How much of the outside noise -- from rumors about Rutgers to overall displeasure with your performance as Mississippi State's head coach -- do you hear, and how does it affect you? Moorhead has answered variations of the same question multiple times during Mississippi State's four-game losing streak. His most recent response was one of his most insightful. "You understand what you sign up for when you become a head coach in this league -- the good, the bad and the ugly," Moorhead said. "People are entitled to their opinions and what they think is reality, and I'm entitled to mine as well. I'm excited about what we did last year, I'm excited about the current state and I'm excited about the future of the program," Moorhead said. "That's where we're at, and that's where I'm at. If I was any better, there would be two of me." |
| Slumping Mississippi State trying to keep bowl streak alive | |
| Mississippi State has lost four straight games by an average margin of 21.3 points and appears to be getting steadily worse in the second season of Joe Moorhead's coaching tenure. The Bulldogs (3-5, 1-4 SEC) head into the final month of the season needing to win three of their last four games to become eligible for a 10th straight bowl appearance. That journey begins this weekend as Mississippi State travels to Arkansas (2-6, 0-5), which has dropped 16 consecutive conference games. The Bulldogs also host No. 2 Alabama, Football Championship Subdivision program Abilene Christian and rival Ole Miss in the month of November. |
| Mississippi State's Greg Eiland expected back this week | |
| Last weekend, while Mississippi State was out in College Station taking on Texas A&M, Greg Eiland was back in his hometown of Philadelphia watching the game on television with his mother and brother. Eiland described the experience as "too weird." What made it so strange is that for the past 20 games, the 6-foot-8, 335-pound junior has been a starting tackle for MSU. He was forced to miss a game for the first time in his career due to a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. "It's always tough to sit out and knowing that you're hurt and can't go out there and be with your brothers," Eiland said. "Yeah, it sucked watching it at home when I was supposed to be out there with them." Eiland isn't sure if the injury will require surgery at the season's end but the good news is that Eiland is expected back this weekend when MSU travels to Arkansas. He was held out of Sunday's practice but resumed work on Tuesday. |
| Mississippi State vs Arkansas: Can Razorbacks snap SEC losing streak? | |
| Tom Murphy of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette has seen a lot of futile football in recent years. The Arkansas Razorbacks have not won an SEC game since Oct. 28, 2017, against Ole Miss. They've lost 16 in a row since then. The streak has to stop eventually, be it next year or as early as this Saturday against Mississippi State. This is what Murphy expects to see in Fayetteville when the Bulldogs (3-5, 1-4 SEC) take on the Hogs (2-6, 0-5 SEC). |
| Consistent offense eludes Razorbacks | |
| The University of Arkansas' offense can put up points, as evidenced in the Razorbacks' 55-point outburst against Colorado State. To make that kind of result more of the norm, the Hogs have to maintain balance between the run and pass and find their cast of receiving playmakers more frequently. Rakeem Boyd and Devwah Whaley have provided a solid 1-2 punch at tailback; Cheyenne O'Grady has established himself as one of the best tight ends in the country; and the young receivers -- headlined by freshmen Treylon Burks and Trey Knox, and sophomore Mike Woods -- seemingly have been on the brink of breaking out throughout the year. As the Razorbacks (2-6, 0-5 SEC) enter their final four-game stretch of the season, starting with Saturday's 3 p.m. game against struggling Mississippi State (3-5, 1-4 SEC), the offense also is looking for consistent blocking and protection from a banged-up offensive line. |
| Ole Miss launches search committee for new Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics | |
| University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce officially launched the search for a new vice chancellor for intercollegiate athletics on Wednesday. Chaired by Ole Miss alumnus and retired FedEx Executive Vice President Mike Glenn, the committee has scheduled an initial meeting, but the information for that first meeting has yet to be made public. The search committee includes representation from former Ole Miss football, baseball and women's basketball players, as well as faculty and members of the M-Club. Archie Manning will also take place in the search, but in an "advisory capacity" to the committee, the release stated. Since Ross Bjork left the job after seven years for Texas A&M in May, former deputy athletics director for development and resource acquisition Keith Carter has been acting as interim athletic director. The University did not mention whether or not they will interview Carter for the full-time role. |
| Southern Miss AD comments on NCAA compensation decision | |
| NCAA student-athletes may soon be able to make some money from their fame. The NCAA Board of Governors voted Tuesday to allow athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, but the NCAA still needs to figure out how that will work within their guidelines. University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Director Jeremy McClain agrees with the decision made by the board. "I think the move in this direction is a good one," McClain said. "I think college athletics has continued to evolve over time." McClain wants the NCAA to be cautious about the guidelines put in place with this legislation. "I think what we have to do, though, is be very careful about how it's done," McClain said. "I just think we need to protect college athletics from the standpoint of all the good things about it. We need to make sure we don't negatively impact that, including out student-athletes." McClain believes only a few players from each school will be able to take advantage of the ruling. |
| Oregon Women Are No. 1 for First Time in AP Top 25 Poll | |
| When he took over in 2014, Kelly Graves set out to establish Oregon as one of the elite teams in women's college basketball. Fresh off their first Final Four appearance, the Ducks are ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll for the first time in school history. Oregon, led by sensational guard Sabrina Ionescu, received 25 of the 28 first-place votes from the national media panel to grab the top spot in the preseason rankings released Wednesday. No. 2 Baylor, the defending national champion, received the other three first-place votes. Stanford, Maryland and UConn round out the top five. No. 6 Texas A&M has its best ranking since the Aggies were fifth on Dec. 29, 2014. Oregon State, South Carolina, Louisville and Mississippi State complete the top 10. |
| Toomer's Oaks poisoning: Harvey Updyke fails to appear in court | |
 | Harvey Updyke failed to appear in Lee County court Wednesday afternoon, and now the Lee County District Attorney's Office has a month to gather more information before the judge decides on issuing an arrest warrant. The district attorney's office asked for a warrant for Updyke, who confessed in 2013 to poisoning the Toomer's Oaks after Auburn's 2010 Iron Bowl victory. Lee County District Attorney Brandon Hughes said Updyke hasn't been keeping up payments on his court-ordered $816,694.98 in restitution to Auburn University and court costs. Hughes believes Updyke doesn't want to pay back the money. "He's traveled other places to watch Alabama play so he's spending money," Hughes said in August. "He's just not spending it on his restitution like he's supposed to." According to court records, Updyke has paid $6,915.50; however, he still needs to pay more than $809,000. |
| Gamecocks social media guru sees good, bad and ugly side of fans on Twitter | |
 | The replies were mean, as they almost always are. Some were vicious, nasty and borderline abusive, as they sometimes are. Folks are reacting and displaying their emotions because social media gives them that platform, and if it's the GamecockFB Twitter account that put out the particularly galling 41-21 final score of a loss to Tennessee, well, fire away. It's not a giant athletics department or an entire football team who posted that Tweet and is reading the replies, choosing whether or not to reply. It's a 29-year-old who loves South Carolina as much as you, but also understands that vitriol is part, if not most, of the gig. "I think after the (Belk Bowl) Virginia loss was one of the most mentally challenging times. In that week, that day, I learned that it's OK not to look or not respond," said Sally Mobley, USC's manager of athletics social media. "If it's super negative, we won't respond. It is good practice to respond to your customers, but not every situation is the same." |
| Beale Street braces for Memphis in May-sized crowds during ESPN's College GameDay | |
| At 8 a.m. on a normal Saturday morning, Beale Street is nearly empty. The bars are closed. The crowds are gone. Crews are clearing away the last of the trash, evidence of Friday night's no-doubt raucous time. The customers at Miss Polly's Soul City Cafe, one of the only businesses open for breakfast on Saturday mornings, are usually among the few to see the street at one of its quietest moments. But this Saturday won't be your average Saturday. Thousands of people are expected to converge on Beale Street bright and early where ESPN's "College GameDay" will air hours before the University of Memphis takes on Southern Methodist University. "I think it's going to be crazy busy, like something we've never seen" said Ty Agee, owner of Miss Polly's. "We're going to staff like Memphis in May for the morning... That's a huge, huge deal for us." Agee said his restaurant is one of the smallest on Beale Street, seating only 55 guests. He will have four servers, four cooks, someone working the door and an outside bartender. |
| College Athletes Push for More Mental-Health Care, Fighting 'Tough It Out' Culture | |
 | Olivia Lubarsky had always dreamed of becoming a Division I college gymnast. So when she committed to Towson University her junior year of high school, she began a countdown on her phone right away. "It was going to be the best four years of my life," Lubarsky, now a senior, said. But the transition from her California high school to an East Coast college was harder than Lubarsky had imagined. A perfectionist in a sport that demands perfection, she set unrealistic goals for her performance and became anxious and depressed when she fell short of them. By mid-semester, she was struggling and unwilling to admit it, even to herself. The start of college is a difficult time for many students, bringing homesickness, roommate conflicts, and uneasy freedoms. But for college athletes like Lubarsky, it comes with additional challenges: intense demand on their time, the pressure to perform, and the stress of being in the spotlight, their every move scrutinized. |
| Bill to pay college athletes to be proposed in Nebraska Legislature | |
| Senator Ernie Chambers has been trying to pay college athletes in Nebraska for decades, even going as far wearing Husker apparel in 1983. But now, 36 years later., Senator Megan Hunt says now is the moment to pass this in Nebraska. "I just don't think it's right that we're putting our players through so much, that we're asking them to do a lot to entertain us, to make money for the university, for the NCAA, but they don't get to benefit financially from any of that," says Hunt. It's time for the players to get paid. That's what Senator Hunt is going to be saying to the unicameral when the next legislative session begins in January. This comes after the NCAA announced Tuesday that they will soon "permit students participating in athletics the opportunity to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness..." So Hunt wants to open the door legally for players to get paid when businesses use their name, image or likeness, while also remaining on scholarship. |
| Wisconsin working on bill to let college athletes make money off fame | |
| Wisconsin lawmakers are working on a proposal that would allow college athletes to use their fame in amateur sports to make money. The bill mirrors a new California law that allows players to strike endorsement deals and hire agents and comes after University of Wisconsin-Madison athletic director Barry Alvarez said he wouldn't schedule games against California teams because the rules make the players professionals, not amateurs. It also comes a day after the National Collegiate Athletic Association board voted to permit student athletes to benefit monetarily from their name, image and likeness. Under the Wisconsin proposal, colleges and universities could not stop their athletes from commercializing their own name and likeness, and athletic associations would be barred from penalizing higher institutions for allowing their athletes to do so. Bill author Rep. Dave Murphy of Greenville said he doesn't believe his proposal will make an uneven playing field. "I think if you went too far, it could ... we keep recruiting as clean as possible," he said. "It really gets into personal freedoms and having the freedom to do what you want." |
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