Years from now, we will remember many of the vivid images from a rainy night in Oxford and Ole Miss’ thoroughly convincing 28-10 victory over mighty Georgia:

• Of worthy Ole Miss Heisman Trophy candidate Jaxson Dart limping to the locker room early, the game seemingly over almost before it started. But, no, redshirt freshman Austin Simmons rallied the Rebels, directing a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to tie the game at 7. Defeating a team that has won 53 of its last 56 and two of the last three national championships requires so many huge contributions. None were bigger than what Simmons, just turned 19, did. The lanky kid from Miami stands 6 feet, 4 inches tall, but he played much taller than that Saturday night.
• Of Dart limping back onto the field, his left ankle heavily taped, and providing clutch play after clutch play in a remarkable display of grit and and character. Dart made so many plays, both with his arm and his legs, but the one I’ll remember is when he escaped the Georgia pass rush, somehow getting free while running to his left, turned the corner and rambled 28 yards, clearly favoring the left ankle, before blowing up a Georgia safety who finally – and painfully – made the tackle. It was the biggest play of a third quarter drive that extended the Rebels’ lead to 25-10.
• Of a smothering, ball-hawking Ole Miss defense that came at Georgia quarterback Carson Beck from so many angles he never seemed to get settled. Last year, on a similarly rainy day, Georgia smoked Ole Miss 52-17, gaining 611 yards of total offense, 300 of it on the ground. The Rebels clearly were out-manned, so they went out and got some new men, spending heavily on defense in the transfer portal. Georgia could not block them all. The Rebels signed the aptly named Princely Umanmielen from Florida, Walter Nolen from Texas A&M and Chris Paul from Arkansas, Trey Amos from Alabama and others. And before you call it “the best team money can buy,” remember this: You have to buy the right ones and then you have to coach them. Those new guys have meshed well with returners such as J.J. Pegues and Suntarine Perkins in coordinator Pete Golding’s defense that often looks as if it is playing with 13 guys instead of 11.
• Of a squirrel, who stole the spotlight and stopped the game for nearly a minute in the second quarter, scampering onto the field and darting this way and that. It eventually headed toward the Georgia sidelines, scattering Bulldogs players including the quarterback Beck, who had better luck evading the squirrel than he did the Rebels’ pass rush.
• Of Ole Miss receivers running so free in the Georgia secondary you’d almost swear they must have smelled just awful. We haven’t seen this many receivers consistently get so open since Steve Spurrier was drawing up ball plays at The Swamp in Gainesville. Keep in mind, Ole Miss was doing this without its best receiver Tre Harris – “the best receiver in the country,” Lane Kiffin says – who missed his third consecutive game. For that matter, the Rebs were also playing without starting running back Henry Parrish Jr.
• Of Kiffin, the mastermind of it all, choking up briefly during his postgame interview with ESPN’s Molly McGrath when talking about Dart. We don’t often see that side of Kiffin but you could tell this one meant the world to him. This was the so-called signature victory his otherwise highly successful tenure at Ole Miss has lacked.
• Of Caden Davis’ kicking and Fraser Masin’s punting. As previously typed, you don’t win games like this without multiple, huge contributions, and those must include the kicking game. Davis, who has one of the strongest legs in football, was a perfect 5-for-5 on field goals, including a 53-yarder. Masin, from Brisbane, Australia, punted only twice but one was a Ray Guy-like 65-yard boomer that flipped the field late in the second quarter.
• Of Ole Miss fans rushing onto the field, not once but twice in a wild, raucous celebration that rivaled the one after a similar conquest of Alabama 10 years earlier. The postgame flood of humanity likely will cost the Rebels $250,000, which Ole Miss must pay to Georgia. Maybe, the Bulldogs can use it to help buy an offensive tackle who can block Umanamielen and Perkins on the edge. But then, these days, that probably will cost more than 250 grand.

One thing is certain: Ole Miss should move ahead of Georgia in the playoff rankings. Anyone who witnessed Saturday night’s dismantling of the Bulldogs (397 yards to 245) can testify to that. This wasn’t just a victory, it was a statement. 

So what’s next? Ole Miss entered the game ranked No. 16 in the new 12-team playoff rankings. Georgia was No. 3. The Rebels should easily move up into the top 12 and should make the playoffs if they can defeat Florida and Mississippi State to end the regular season. No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Miami and No. 15 LSU all lost Saturday. Ole Miss’ two defeats have come by three points each to Kentucky and LSU. The Rebels really are two plays away from 10-0.

Kiffin said beforehand that to win it all, a team eventually will have to beat Georgia. After watching what happened in Oxford, we can all agree that someone is going to have to beat Ole Miss. Currently, that’s a chore.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Nov. 10, 1898

Editor Alexander Manly escaped a lynch mob in Wilmington, North Carolina, that ordered him killed on sight. Manly had already gained a reputation nationally for his commentary that challenged negative racial stereotypes. 

Unable to kill Manly, the mob of 1,500 white supremacists burned down his newspaper, The Daily Record, the state’s only daily Black newspaper. The mob then embarked on a massacre, killing as many as hundreds of the town’s 2,100 Black residents, dumping their bodies into the Cape Fear River. The mob burned Black homes and businesses, forcing Black citizens to leave town. The white supremacists seized control of the local government and published a “White Declaration of Independence.” 

Manly made his way to Philadelphia, where he became a member of the Black newspaper council and helped found The Armstrong Association, a precursor to the National Urban League. 

“The aftermath of the coup helped usher in the ‘Jim Crow’ era of the South,” Newsweek wrote. “No Black citizen served in public office in Wilmington until 1972, and no Black citizen from North Carolina was elected to Congress until 1992.” David Zucchino’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy” tells the story of what happened.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

In still incomplete returns, Roger Wicker, the state’s senior U.S. senator, likely will have garnered the votes of more Mississippians in his reelection campaign than did Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

That fact holds some significance since Wicker, a Tupelo Republican, was criticized by some Trump supporters for voting in his official capacity to certify the election results in 2020 when Democrat Joe Biden handily defeated Trump in his reelection effort. Trump and many of his ardent supporters, arguing false claims of election fraud, did not want Congress to certify the Biden victory.

Wicker was the only Republican member of the Mississippi congressional delegation — including junior Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith — to courageously follow the U.S. Constitution and certify the results.

For that effort, Wicker was the subject of scorn by many Trump supporters. That is why his election results, apparently outperforming Trump, is of note.

That said, Wicker’s refusal to adhere to the president’s wishes in 2021 and not vote to certify the election did not prevent the Mississippi senator from being an ardent supporter of Trump’s election campaign this year.

Wicker’s campaign messaging aligned him with Trump, and he touted that support for the Republican president just days before the Nov. 5 election at the annual Mississippi Economic Council’s Hobnob political speakings.

But there is a possibility that Wicker and the president will again butt heads during the next four years. Wicker has been one of the nation’s most forceful supporters of Ukraine as the country attempts to beat back Russian aggression.

Trump has at times argued that Ukraine was more at fault for the ongoing war than Russia. Russian leader Vladimir Putin did not attempt to hide the fact he supported Trump in his effort to win the election and return to the White House.

The president-elect has said he would quickly end the war. Many speculate the only way to quickly end the war is for the United States under Trump to cut off financial aid to Ukraine and force the country to secede a significant portion of its land to Russia.

It is hard to envision Wicker supporting such an effort by Trump and Putin.

Under the Trump administration and the newly Republican-controlled Senate, Wicker will be one of D.C.’s most powerful politicians as chair of the influential Armed Services Committee. He will carry incredible weight in matters of wartime spending and focus.

But in recent years, even Republican politicians who carry such weight often have yielded to the wishes and whims of Trump — often even against their personal beliefs and better judgment — because of his influence over the Republican electorate.

Wicker, who was first appointed to the Senate on New Year’s Eve in 2007 by then-Gov. Haley Barbour to fill an abrupt vacancy left by powerful U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, is in a unique position to provide guardrails to Trump when he believes it is necessary.

Wicker, age 73, is beginning a new six-year term and will still be in the Senate when Trump’s second and final term ends.

Trump, as he is wont to do, can call the senior senator from Mississippi bad names, but in reality he cannot do much to hurt him.

And Trump would probably never admit it, but Roger Wicker embraced him earlier in the 2016 cycle than many Republican politicians, at a time when many were still skeptical of the wild-tongued New York real estate developer’s candidacy.

In 2016, Wicker came to the political speakings at the Neshoba County Fair to voice support for Trump in his November election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. It is hard to believe now, but in that summer of 2016, many Republican politicians were staying at arms length from Trump after the combustible GOP primary where he ran a torched-earth campaign — among other things calling the wife of Republican opponent Ted Cruz ugly and saying Cruz’s father might have been involved in the assassination of John Kennedy.

At the Neshoba County Fair, Wicker explained why he was supporting Trump, saying: “I don’t think (Hillary Clinton) is trustworthy enough.”

Wicker was not on the ballot in 2016. He had come to the fair solely to tout Trump. Wicker made that trip to Neshoba County even though he was busy heading up the National Republican Senatorial Committee that was working to elect Republicans to the Senate. A few days before touting Trump at the fair, he had done the same at the Republican National Convention before a nationwide television audience.

Even in the summer of 2016, Trump’s cozy relationship with Putin already was being discussed. Wicker, who had written a commentary earlier that year that was carried by national publications proclaiming Russia was America’s greatest threat, was asked about Trump’s relationship with Putin and Russia.

He refused to answer, saying he was not going to address every issue surrounding Trump.

If Trump tries to force Ukraine to give up a portion of its country to Russia in the coming years, perhaps Wicker might want to discuss that issue this time.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.