Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama will meet in the College Football Playoffs. Michigan and Alabama will meet in the Rose Bowl on January 1 while Washington and Texas will match up in the Sugar Bowl also on January 1. The winners will meet in Houston on Monday, January 8, for the championship game. Next year, a dozen teams will be selected for the CFP. Ole Miss finished 11th in the final CFP rankings this year and will meet No. 10 Penn State in the Peach Bowl on December 30 in Atlanta. Nine SEC teams will go bowling. Besides Alabama and Ole Miss, Georgia will play unbeaten Florida State in the Orange Bowl, Missouri will head to the Cotton Bowl to meet Ohio State. Tennessee will meet Iowa in the Citrus Bowl, and LSU will play Wisconsin in the ReliaQuest Bowl. Auburn will meet Maryland in the Music city Bowl while Texas A&M will play Oklahoma State in the Texas Bowl. Kentucky will play Clemson in the Gator Bowl.
The five-time National Champion East Mississippi Lions, the fourth seed in the four-team NJCAA D-1 football playoffs, upset No. 1 Hutchinson Community College, 27-23. The Lions will now head to Little Rock, Arkansas, to play for the National Championship. The game will be televised on ESPNU on Wednesday, December 13.
The Mississippi High School Activities Association started out with 245 teams dreaming of playing in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium this first week of December in the state championship. Only fourteen survived the rigors of a demanding 15-game schedule to play in the championship game. When all the dust had settled, seven were left standing. Louisville and West Point each won their 12th state championship, breaking a tie with 11-time winner South Panola.
Louisville (15-0) won the 4-A title, 19-6, over previously unbeaten Columbia. West Point (11-3) claimed No. 12 with a 35-7 win over Laurel. Oak Grove won their state title, 33-28, over Starkville and became the first Class 7-A winner to be crowned by the MHSAA.
Biggersville (12-1) won their first state championship in program history in their second ever appearance with a last second touchdown to down Velma Jackson (13-1), 53-49, for the Class 1-A title. Winona (15-0) won their first ever state championship in football history over Noxubee County, 34-27, in the Class 3-A title game. Charleston (13-2) won their second state title and first since 2011, 26-22, over Heidelberg in the Class 2-A game. West Jones (15-0) claimed the Class 6-A championship with a 23-3 win over Grenada for their second state title.
This Saturday, the Mississippi Association of Coaches will host their Bernard Blackwell North/South All-Star game to be played at Milner Stadium in Gulfport at 11:30 a.m. The following Saturday, Southern Mississippi will host the Mississippi/Alabama All-Star game, also sponsored by the MAC.
The unbeaten Ole Miss Rebel cagers had a big time win over highly regarded Memphis, 80-77, last Saturday. The Southern Mississippi cagers also notched a win over UAB in Birmingham with an 85-82 comeback. The USM Lady Eagles (7-0) also got caught up in the storm of upsets. and shocked the Ole Miss Lady Rebels, 61-59, last Saturday in Hattiesburg.
Mississippi football fanatics can read all about our state’s football history and who made football history happen in The Mississippi Football Book. Co-authors of the book, Rick Cleveland and Neil White, will meet football lovers and sign copies of their book this Thursday in Pass Christian and this Friday in Hattiesburg. “I think no matter who you pull for, who your team is, there’s a lot of, even if you don’t even care about football, there’s enough people stories in this book that will draw you in. I mean, it’s not just about the X’s and O’s of football; it’s about the people who’ve made the difference in Mississippi,” said Cleveland. The book costs $45.
