OXFORD, Miss.–The Grove in Oxford, Mississippi is where the party’s at, and it has been that way for years. Oak trees envelope the 10-acre centralized campus park and encase it in college football amber. It is an area straight out of central casting for a lush, Southern landscape — that is, except on Saturday October 4, when its quiet serenity was disrupted by thousands of college football fans and College Game Day trucks.
Someone has Dixieland Delight blaring while sitting in traffic in Oxford. Alabama is in town, as am I.
— Jonathan Biles (@Jonathan_Biles) October 4, 2014
The Rebels were always a football team with history and tradition, with legendary quarterbacks Archie and Eli Manning and three-titled head coach John Vaught. But over the past few decades, they haven’t been able to compete with the other powers in the SEC. Ole Miss was the prestige school for Southern traditions without much else. “We may not win every game, but we’ve never lost a party” is the famous saying at the Grove, but that saying could soon be scratched from the Rebels’ vernacular thanks to this 2014 team.
These Rebels have a different mentality than those who came before them. With an enthusiastic head coach, Hugh Freeze, who happens to be a fine offensive mind and an excellent recruiter, Ole Miss has built a team piece-by-piece that can compete with anyone. Its “Landshark” defense — now second in the country in points allowed — and confident quarterback, who isn’t afraid to be quoted, had the team and the fans ready for game day. And with No. 1 ranked (in the Coaches Poll) Alabama coming to town, the feeling in Oxford was optimistic and excitable.
The Ole Miss campus would make an editor for Southern Living faint. It is the preserved Southern ideal, executed perfectly. The vast majority of tents in the Grove are filled with finely dressed people, eating food from china plates underneath chandeliers and accent pieces. Traditions like these are what make college football special, and they are the heart of Ole Miss’ football history and unwavering fan base.
Still, some have felt for years that certain traditions needed to end, and Ole Miss has made strides in the past decade to end some of the more controversial remnants of the past. They got rid of the Colonel Reb mascot, banned the Confederate flag, stopped the playing of “To Dixie With Love” and no longer chant “The South will rise again.”
But some living reminders of the past still persist — like an old man dressed as Colonel Reb taking photos with anyone who asks — but this is a new, more modern Ole Miss. Something that was on display for ESPN’s College Gameday’s first visit to the Grove this past Saturday after passing over Ole Miss for 20 years.
And I made it to Gameday. pic.twitter.com/V0Dw2vGS5v
— Jonathan Biles (@Jonathan_Biles) October 4, 2014
The weekly traveling college football show (and college football’s biggest sign of acceptance) visited the Grove, one of the most famous tailgating arenas in the country, for the very first time. Gameday is a true sign of football relevance and the utmost signifier of the caliber of the team, another sign of Ole Miss’ season so far.
While Gameday’s producers wanted to visit the Grove for years, Ole Miss would lose and ruin its chance every time a date was being discussed.
When the day finally came, Ole Miss didn’t disappoint.
The Pit — the sealed area directly behind the stage that is reserved for the most dedicated fans — was full hours before showtime. Many fans remarked that this was the most crowded they had ever seen the Grove on a Saturday. The Gameday hosts wore bow ties and even Lee Corso wore a seersucker suit — a bit of a faux pas in October.
One of the biggest events of the day was the arrival of the celebrity guest picker, pop star Katy Perry. She entered through the crowd, barricaded by six state troopers and an army of security, holding a tray of drinks. Her manager is an Ole Miss graduate and she was playing a concert in nearby Memphis the night after, so her presence made a bit more sense than previously thought.
“This is insane,” ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit said as he walked offstage Saturday morning.
Ok this was dumb luck. pic.twitter.com/hd0DiEOmz4
— Jonathan Biles (@Jonathan_Biles) October 4, 2014
“I’m ready to win one of these games,” ESPN writer and Mississippian Wright Thompson said to a group of sportswriters on the Gameday set. “I’m sick of winning the party.”
Katy Perry and the overwhelming multitude of fans made sure Ole Miss won the party this Game Day, but the game still had to be played.
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium is the second-smallest stadium in the SEC but it makes up for its size with fan enthusiasm. It doesn’t have the polish or homogenization of Alabama, or the classic vigor of Jordan-Hare, but the fans make it what it is. The Rebel fans are vocal and hostile, just like any respectable fan base in college football. They fill the 60,000 seats and adamantly try to affect the other team on the field. They lock arms and sway back and forth in an effort to “Lock the Vaught” and make it even more intimidating. The PA announcer declares “First Down” and the fans, in unison, scream “Ole Miss.” And then there’s the Hotty Toddy.
Imagine Alabama fans saying “Rammer Jammer,” but instead of chanting it after a victory one, maybe two times, they say it constantly. The “Hotty Toddy” chant is said more than Tennessee plays Rocky Top, more than USC plays Tribute to Troy, and more than Ohio State fans say “O-H-I-O.” But like some kind of gridiron psychological warfare, it works. It’s the universal chant of Ole Miss, one that everyone knows and everyone says, young to old. Even Katy Perry turned around and led the cheer after she was the only Gameday picker on the dais to select the Rebels. Anytime the fans started doing it, the stadium would shake and re-energize the crowd. Plus, any cheer that fits the words “flim-flam, bim-bam” is absolutely worth chanting dozens of times.
After Senquez Golson intercepted Blake Sims to seal the game for Ole Miss, the fans hopped over the Vaught-Hemingway brick wall and onto the field. As a professional journalist, I joined them, for objective reasons. The university did get fined the full $50,000 for field-storming and subsequent field goal post removal, but the opportunity to get on the field after a seminal win is too perfect to pass up.
Hotty toddy baby pic.twitter.com/0UDQMQcLAn
— Ryan Pitts (@PittsRyan) October 5, 2014
The Grove did not disappoint, and neither did the play on the field. Saturday was probably the most important day in the history of Mississippi football, with the Rebels beating Alabama — who had beaten them 10 years in a row — and Mississippi State beating Texas A&M. Both schools are tied for No. 3 in the AP Poll, and the Rebels’ cross-state rival in Starkville will be the host of College Gameday this coming weekend.
With this newfound relevance and quality at Ole Miss, more light is being shed onto the school’s traditions and heritage. This weekend was a well-publicized unveiling of one of college football’s best kept places.
Ole Miss finally won both the game and the party on Saturday, something they intend to keep doing for a long time.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter @Jonathan_Biles
