Reusse: Big wins unleash passion for Mississippi football

Thor Anderson received a Navy ROTC scholarship to the University of Mississippi and enrolled in the fall of 1954. On his first night in Oxford, the freshmen were told to assemble in "The Grove," the leafy acreage in the middle of campus.

Anderson would be in Liberal Arts and was told to gather with the other new enrollees to that college. Six decades later, Anderson doesn't remember the name of the dean or the bulk of his address, but he does recall the dean's final remarks:

"When you die, if you know you are dying, your last thought will not be of God or your parents or children or family; when the last bell is rung and the last song is sung, your last thought will be of Ole Miss."

Ole Miss was segregated during Anderson's four years in Oxford, and soon thereafter, it went through the trauma of 30,000 National Guardsmen being required to have the pioneer of integration, James Meredith, enrolled in the school.

That was long in the past, and graduates such as Anderson, a long-standing judge in Minnesota, can express their appreciation for Ole Miss without qualms.

"I think Ole Miss graduates as a whole have a stronger, emotional feeling for their school than any such group in the country … perhaps along with Notre Dame graduates," Anderson said. "I can't prove that; I just have that feeling."

That bond was reinforced inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday, when Ole Miss upset Alabama 23-17.

"Did you hear her turn to the crowd and shout, 'Are you ready?' " Anderson said. "She knew what she was doing."

That's because, if Ole Miss fans hear "Are you ready?" in the hours before kickoff, they are to respond en masse with the "Hotty Toddy" cheer:

Are you ready?

Hell, yeah! Damn right!

Hotty Toddy, gosh almighty.

Flim flam, Bim bam, Ole Miss by damn!"

Ninety-four miles to the south and east, there is Starkville, a dustier place than Oxford and the home to Mississippi State. Ole Miss celebrates itself as the "Harvard of the South" and its fans refer to State as the "Cow College." The response of the jeans-wearing State faithful is to clang cowbells during games.

On Saturday, State was completing its 48-31 rout of Texas A&M about the time Ole Miss and Alabama were kicking off. The day provided the greatest exacta in the history of Mississippi football, and Ole Miss and Mississippi State are now both unbeaten and tied — tied! — for third in the Associated Press poll.

"It was insane here in Starkville; everyone was so rowdy," Martha Alwal said. "Besides playing Ole Miss, this was the craziest I've seen. I'm so proud of our football team. And our team had a chance to be introduced at halftime, so that was great."

Alwal is from Worthington in southwest Minnesota. She is entering her fourth year as a standout basketball player for Mississippi State.

"It is very real," Alwal said. "I didn't understand at first, why everyone was so anti-Ole Miss, but now I do. If anyone just happens to wear something from Ole Miss around campus, they get booed."

Dori Meifert is a senior at Ole Miss. She's a theater major from Edina. Her father, Ray, heads the Twin Cities Ole Miss Club.

"There is always a great spirit at The Grove before a game, but Saturday … the confidence everybody had that we could beat Alabama was amazing," she said. "Everybody had such a great time, including Katy Perry, from what I've seen on the videos."

Miss Perry can be found on YouTube standing on a table, chugging a beer and then diving into the crowd at an Oxford bar. Can't beat that pub for football partying.

"My friends from home tell me how great the tailgate parties are at the University [of Minnesota], or at Wisconsin," Meifert said. "I say, 'OK,' but I'm thinking, 'You've never been to The Grove.' "