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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

Thank goodness Southern Miss and Ole Miss are playing a bowl doubleheader today. We can wrap up the 2002 football year in Mississippi with these losses. Then Dr. S can start giving the rest of the bowl games the attention (none) they so richly deserve. Let’s start our bowl preview with some mean words from the Los Angeles Times:

Yes, there are way too many bowl games. No, they’re not going away any time soon, at least not until the Seattle and Silicon Valley bowls exhaust their lines of credit. A viewer’s guide to who’s playing, what it means, when they kick off, where you can see it and why you should or shouldn’t tune in:

Houston Bowl:
Who: Southern Miss (7-5) vs. Oklahoma State (7-5).
What: Brett Favre’s alma mater against a team that couldn’t beat UCLA. Lot of good that did Bob Toledo.
When: Friday, noon (ESPN)
Why: Gallery Furniture asked the same question. Unable to come up with a reasonable answer, it dropped its sponsorship.

Independence Bowl:
Who: Nebraska (7-6) vs. Ole Miss (6-6).
What: Nebraska receives its penance for its worst season in four decades — a lovely holiday season spent in Shreveport. Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning continues to pay for his decision not to follow brother Peyton to Tennessee.
When: Friday, 3:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Why: Nebraska puts its major-college record streak of 40 consecutive winning seasons on the line.

Now, let’s get the hometown perspective on today’s games:

From the Hattiesburg American, a wrapup on the Eagles’ preparations for today’s game:
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20021226/southernmissnews/652678.html

From the Houston Chronicle, an uplifting story on the sad end of USM running back Derrick Nix’s football career:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1715701#top

And from the Oxford Eagle, a preview of today’s game:
http://www.oxfordeagle.com/sports1.html

Previous Comments

Dr. S and JFP…. Why do y’all even write about sports. It seems a far stretch that any of you guys would even care about sports or the teams in the state. But, you find the space to further bash more institutions in this state. There is a way to complain and then there is a way to complain. One actually does a community good… your way doesn’t.

#118005 | Author: john | Date: Jan 3 2003

MFP Solutions Lab logo

The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.