Mississippi State's sexy, sassy new marketing campaign assures you that it's a new day for football in Starkville: After decades of woeful inadequacy, their "groove" returned after a 9-win season, and now they're in charge of Mississippi in a sexy, sassy way! Their handsome hero Dan Mullen is driving the program towards a promising horizon of (perspective-weighted) success with the top down and not a care in the world. Sexy! Sassy! Look out, y'all: it's a new Mississippi State!*
We also learned Wednesday that metaphorical vehicle manned by Mullen surely has a maroon tag on it: State athletic director Scott Stricklin proudly cited MSU's latest moral victory, as Mississippi Department of Transportation figures show State with a "commanding" lead in the "license tag battle" across the Magnolia.
A car tag majority is just another swoon-inducing charm of the Bulldogs' two-season romance of with Mullen. MSU is 14-11 with seven SEC wins, one winning season and a New Year's Day bowl victory, but most importantly, TWO Egg Bowl wins over that incorrigible Ike Turner son of a bitch, Ole Miss.
And that's what matters. Rather than position themselves as a rising power in the SEC West (actual math supports that observation, so, uh, yeah...), State's new attitude (purported as sexy and/or sassy), has focused solely on telling those preppy pricks in Oxford they're better than they are. Stricklin's spearheaded everything from a Twitter hashtag campaign (#OurSTATE), to new merchandise, to billboards placed on Interstates 20 and 55 (enjoy the Freekage in this Tiger Droppings thread), to an added Stanley Cup-esque emphasis on the Egg Bowl trophy (in this episode, it meets the Gator Bowl trophy and goes on a date to a bowling alley in Starkville, and the irony of location scouting escapes an entire marketing department!). He's rather obsessed with the concept.
One would assume that the movement is a brainchild of Mullen and Stricklin to motivate State's almost entirely in-state fan base, advocating the long-held and never executed idea that one of the state's three D1 programs could potentially completely dominate the state. Mullen's admitted focus in recruiting has been Mississippi, yet despite beating Ole Miss twice, it hasn't panned out that way.
Rest assured, things are still sexy and sassy for State. All the vindication of a Lifetime movie's protagonist from serial-killing ex-husband Patrick Duffy is intact, but we're all too polite to let State know their white knight beau banged Miami. But the car tags! Y'all own it!
(*It's still very much the same Starkville)