With apologies to all the rest, the best and most meaningful college football rivalry involving a Mississippi team has been the one that matches Ole Miss against LSU. Historically, nothing else comes close.
The two teams play again Saturday at Oxford. Both are undefeated. Both have looked like FBS playoff teams. LSU is ranked No. 4, and Ole Miss is ranked No. 13. Surprisingly, at least to this column, Ole Miss is favored, albeit by the slimmest of margins.
I have covered probably 30 Ole Miss-LSU games in person, but my introduction to the rivalry was not in person or even on TV. No, it came on Halloween night, 66 years ago. LSU was ranked No. 1, Ole Miss No. 3. My father and I listened to the radio at our kitchen table with a yellow formica top on 26th Avenue in Hattiesburg. Our beige Philco radio was tuned to 870 AM, WWL in New Orleans. As was usually was the case at night, WWL came in loud and clear. LSU broadcaster J.C. Politz was on the call.
Ole Miss led 3-0 when Jake Gibbs punted late in the fourth quarter. We heard Politz say Billy Cannon gathered in the punt on a bounce at his own 11-yard line. We heard Politz say Cannon stumbled momentarily at the 20. And then, we couldn’t hear anything Politz said. All we could hear was the roar of the crowd. But, even at age 7, I knew what was happening.
The rest is college football lore. Cannon broke several tackles en route to an 89-yard touchdown. It won the game for LSU and the Heisman Trophy for Cannon. It cost the greatest football team in Mississippi history the outright national championship. Ole Miss absolutely dominated the game, except on the scoreboard. The Rebels gained 19 first downs and 363 yards to six first downs and 74 yards total for LSU. In a Sugar Bowl rematch, Ole Miss hammered LSU 21-0. If not for Cannon’s punt return, that Ole Miss team probably would be remembered as the greatest college football team of all time. Those Rebels outscored 11 opponents, including mighty LSU twice, 349-21
Fifty-four years later, in 2013, Cannon and his LSU coach, Paul Dietzel, attended a meeting of the Jackson Touchdown Club. Also in attendance were several of the ’59 Ole Miss Rebels. Beforehand, Cannon and Dietzel posed for a Clarion Ledger photographer while the former Ole Miss players stood off to the side and watched. And then Marvin Terrell, the biggest and strongest of all the ’59 Rebels, brought down the house when he bellowed, “Hey Billy, come try to run through us now.”
Wisely, Cannon declined.
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