Clay Travis Posts

Last week I wrote about the controversy over The South Will Rise Again chant at Ole Miss. In that piece I noted that Ole Miss was the only SEC school that couldn't escape the South's past. Now a new controversy is here, the Klu Klux Klan is protesting for this week's game against LSU. Seriously.

Faulkner memorably said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

And when it comes to Ole Miss that's certainly the case.

Uga VII, not surprisingly, the son of Uga VI, succumbed to an unexpected heart illness Thursday. The Bulldog mascot, in just his second year prowling the sideline, was only four years old. Presumably, he is survived by many other dogs given that Georgia uses lineal descendants to anoint the next mascot. The mascot-less Georgia team will play on Saturday against Kentucky without their English bulldog on the sideline. In a show of support, the entire team will lick their balls at halftime.

CBS carries the SEC Game of the Week into living rooms across the nation every weekend. CBS' deal is the only national broadcast of any collegiate conference. (Independent Notre Dame, of course, has an eight-game deal with NBC.) ABC also carries football games on network television. But the ABC games, featuring Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, Pac-10, and Big East teams are carried regionally. That means ABC carries teams split geographically, which would theoretically lead to higher overall ratings. That's been the case every year.

Until now.

For the first time since CBS added the SEC in 1996, the SEC games are outdrawing their regional counterparts on ABC. This season's SEC ratings are up 29 percent over comparable ratings last season. Given that CBS still has Alabama-Auburn and what will probably be the highest rated game of the season prior to the BCS bowls, Florida-Alabama in the SEC championship game, CBS and the SEC are likely to triumph over ABC for the season.

Should the SEC thank Tim Tebow? Maybe so. But even without Tebow, does this represent a fascinating turn in the ratings game? I think so. Read on for seven reasons why this is incredibly significant.

In 1985 Bo Jackson won the Heisman Trophy by rushing for 1,657 yards and 15 touchdowns. Twenty-four years later, no SEC running back has won the award again. Not Emmitt Smith, not Darren McFadden, not Knowshon Moreno, not Jamal Lewis, not Fred Taylor, not Garrison Hearst not Terrell Davis -- okay, he wasn't that good in college. None of them. And it's not like there hasn't been an awful lot of talented player, by my review of first-round draft picks, the SEC has had 15 running backs taken in the first round since Bo Jackson won the Heisman.

For over a generation, Jackson has stood alone. But now, in the absence of any overwhelming favorite, Alabama running back Mark Ingram seems to be atop many Heisman lists. Is it justified? How do his numbers stack up compared to past winners? And what do those past winners at running back -- there have only been seven since Bo Jackson in 1985 -- tell us about the current state of college football. Proceed, fearless reader.

Midway through the Ole Miss-Tennessee game on Saturday, a highlight package of Archie Manning's playing days at Ole Miss came on the jumbotron. Ole Miss fans, up to that point cheering their biggest win of the season, went quiet. The man behind me muttered softy to himself, "Them were the days."

As Archie ran around on the field making play after play, it occurred to me, not for the first time, how amazing it is that he sired not one, but two, Super Bowl winning quarterbacks. By the time the cameras found his youngest son, Eli, in a suite, I was still attempting to contemplate how amazing the fact was. By Sunday, after Peyton Manning led his Colts to 21 points in the final 12 minutes of a victory over the Patriots, there could be no doubt: Archie Manning's sperm is one of the greatest national treasures in our country.

Right up there with Abraham Lincoln, the flag outside Fort McHenry that inspired Francis Scott Key to jot down "The Star Spangled Banner" and Dorothy's ruby red slippers. That's why I'm making a humble suggestion to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Archie's sperm should be an exhibit. (Lets see you do that, exhibit on late 19th century wheat threshers.) Otherwise, the museum is worth nothing.

On to the Starting 11.

In February, Nu'Keese Richardson was one of the crown jewels in Lane Kiffin's first recruiting class at Tennessee.

Kiffin wooed the four-star recruit, a longtime Florida commit, away from Urban Meyer and then bragged about the recruiting victory at a UT recruiting breakfast. At the time Kiffin incorrectly argued that Meyer had committed a recruiting violation by contacting Nu'Keese during his visit to Tennessee.

From there Kiffin also engaged in a public feud with the head coach at Pahokee High School. Richardson was, in fact, the spark that turned Urban Meyer and Lane Kiffin's war of words into a conflagration. Richardson was the apostrophe that loosed a thousand ships, and now he's the apostrophe that will never play football again for the University of Tennessee. On Monday, Kiffin announced that both Richardson and fellow freshman recruit Mike Edwards have been permanently dismissed from the team.

"After extensive and thorough research of the situation over the last four days and considering various disciplinary options, I've decided it's in the best interest of our program to remove Nu'Keese and Mike," Kiffin said. "As I've said many times before, we hold our student-athletes to an extremely high standard on and off the field. Our student-athletes must be responsible members of society, and this type of conduct will not be tolerated.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- On Sunday the Tennessee Titans beat the Buffalo Bills 41-17. The win was the Titans' third in a row after beginning 0-6, and the teams' 86-year-old owner, Bud Adams, was watching from his owner's suite with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Halfway through the game, Adams was recognized on the jumbotron. Fans cheered. Adams smiled and waved from his open-air suite. Then, as he celebrated victory, Adams decided to shoot the bird at the opposing sideline. First, Adams went with the right hand bird. Then he went left hand with the bird. Finally, he pulled out the rare, and underrated, double bird.

Presumably, shooting the bird at opposing teams violates one of Roger Goodell's NFL rules. And now Goodell finds himself in the unique position of actually witnessing behavior that he might be required to fine. In the meantime, fans are left to wonder, what longstanding beef does Bud Adams have with the 91-year-old owner of the Buffalo Bills, Ralph Wilson? Or is this simply an old man move, is the double bird an old AFL pat on the back? Video after the jump.

OXFORD, Miss -- Saturday, I had the misfortune of watching Dexter McCluster run for 4 billion yards against Tennessee. At least that's what it felt like. In all actuality, McCluster merely slashed, dashed, and cavorted his way for 282 yards on 25 carries. In the process Dexter McCluster struck a blow for men named Dexter, made himself millions of dollars in the NFL, and left Tennessee's defense looking as if they weren't familiar with many advanced defensive techniques.

Such as tackling.

All of this took place on a glorious Saturday morning in Oxford, Miss., when, aside from the brutal 11 a.m. kickoff that left Ole Miss students in bed until halftime, it was hard to imagine wanting to be anywhere else. By shortly after 2 p.m., I wished I'd been anywhere else.

At least, that is, when I wasn't marveling over McCluster's utter domination of the Vols.

I've watched football games my entire life, and I've never seen a rushing performance in person that dominant.

Ever.

I've heard your Tebow talk and your McCoy blather, I've even read your outlandish suggestions that Alabama running back Mark Ingram should win the award. Please, Ingram isn't even as good as Temple's Bernard Pierce and Stanford's Toby Gerhart statistically, and I haven't heard a single one of you mention him. Already, we've made Case's case, and I don't agree with that either.

There is still one player is lurking out there without much national recognition despite the fact that he has the best profile of any Heisman contender.

Why is he being ignored? Because he plays for Boise State and because, you might have noticed, Boise State is off the national radar despite being undefeated. That means most of us have missed what Kellen Moore has managed so far this fall. Thus far,Moore has completed over 67 percent of his passes with many more touchdowns than interceptions. Along the way he's led his team to a 9-0 record, kicked a huge dent in the BCS superiority, and burnished his Heisman credentials. Don't believe me, please step inside for a discussion.

When Ole Miss hosts Tennessee Saturday, the school's band will not play "From Dixie WIth Love," a song that features an incongruous pairing of "Dixie" with the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Why? Because some students and alumni chant, "The South will rise again," at the end of the song.

For Ole Miss' first-year chancellor, Dan Jones (pictured, right), this chant is unacceptable behavior.

"Here at the University of Mississippi, there must be no doubt that this is a warm and welcoming place for all," Dan Jones wrote Tuesday in a letter to the university community. "We cannot even appear to support those outside our community who advocate a revival of racial segregation. We cannot fail to respond."

So Jones has responded.

And so, "From Dixie With Love" has gone the way of Colonel Reb, the original song Dixie, and the Confederate battle flag, excised from Vaught-Hemingway stadium as offensive relics of a bygone era.