Don't bark unless you can bite

By Brian Livingston
blivingston@themeridianstar.com
Monday evening I was assigned to attend the Road Dawgs Tour, the MSU Alumni Association event held at MSU-Meridian. I was there to get a photo of head coach Sylvester Croom as he talked to Bulldog supporters from the area. But a funny thing happened while waiting on Croom.

As anyone who knows me can attest to I'm a born and raised Razorback from Arkansas. I have the belt with the little hogs running around and a cell phone cover with the Hog prominately displayed. I get prodded a lot about it but I don't mind. In fact, as long as the Hogs keep beating MSU and Ole Miss, I'm fairly bulletproof from any shots taken at me and my team.

But Monday evening I had to deflect yet another shot.

The Village Kitchen, which has marvelous home cooking any Southerner can sink their teeth into, was catering the event. Lo and behold they had roasted an entire hog, complete with cute Bulldog coins in the eye sockets. The hog was quite delicious looking all laid out on the middle table and I couldn't help but smile at the irony of my being given this assignment and having a hog splayed out. I thought it was funny. Obviously, someone who is an ardent Bulldog fan noticed my college of choice.

"That's what we do to hogs around here!" he said as I looked at the roasted hog.

I immediately, without even turning my gaze from the table, said, "And what was the score of last year's game, and the games before that?"

The Bulldog immediately stopped barking.

For the record, MSU last beat Arkansas in 1998. That was a one point win. Since then the Hogs have completely dominated MSU which includes a 52-6 blowout in 2003, a 44-10 win in 2005 and last year's 45-31 shootout.

Hey, my daughter is a freshman at MSU and I will likely be sending a lot of money to Starkville for the next thousand years while she pursues her Masters Degree so I hold no ill will toward the Bulldogs. In fact, I used to root for the Dawgs and many of the other SEC teams when the Hogs were in the old Southwest Conference. I knew then, as has been proven year after year, the SEC in the dominate football conference, top to bottom, in the country. So it's been quite an adjustment for me since Arkansas joined the SEC, playing against teams I respected and liked.

But make no mistake, I'm not going to call the Hogs in the face of a Gator fan until we've beaten them several times!

And the roast pig? It was great.

Woooo, pig, sooie!