Ole Miss/LSU Rivalry Bedtime Stories- Part 5

Part 5:
Before we continue the story line, I'd like to clear up something. If I left
anyone with the impression that LSU was the only team that would not play the
Rebs in Oxford, that was certainly not the case. There was the general notion
amongst most SEC schools that Ole Miss was hopelessly isolated in a town too
small to handle big football crowds. In an article about Vaught in the October,
1956 edition of "The Saturday Evening Post", this problem was outlined: "Johnny
Vaught seems to have solved every problem except the geographical one created by
the state legislators 115 years ago. In Vaught's time the Rebels have been able
to schedule only 22 of 93 games at home plus some in Memphis and
Jackson.....Sometimes the townfolk go an entire year without seeing a single
conference game in handsome 34,500 seat Hemingway Stadium. 6 of the 12
conference schools have not visited Ole Miss in 20 years and a few, notably GT,
insist they will never play there".
Oxford was a beautiful but small town of 4,000. It simply couldn't handle the
large crowds. I believe the Grove became what it is today out of pure necessity
while Vaught's teams packed the stadium and a large % of the crowd had no other
choice but to picnic under the large oaks. Anyway, nobody wanted to deal with
the clogged 2 lane highways that led in and out of Ole Miss. I believe that only
State was willing to consistently play there. And until an airport that could
handle commercial planes was built, nothing would change.
By 1956, Vaught had won 3 conference championships, had a w/l record surpassed
only by GT, had lost only 3 conference games in 4 years and was almost becoming
the annual home team in the Sugar Bowl which had suddenly transformed Ole Miss'
football budgets from one of the lowest to one of the highest. The football
program actually had begun donating about $70,000/ yr to Ole Miss to be used for
academic purposes.
The recruiting coordinator and "ace recruiter and evaluator" was Tom Swayze.
Sway ze would recruit principly from Mississippi but a considerable % of players
on the roster were from West Tenn and always some from East Ark. Vaught rarely
would recruit but would enter into the picture if a player was talented enough
and swaying towards another school. We rarely lost anyone in our area we went
after. It got so good that other schools [mainly State and occassionally LSU]
accused us of paying for players. But ex- LSU HC Bernie Moore, then Commissioner
of the SEC reported that "They haven't got a thing to hide. Ole Miss has a clean
operation- one of the cleanest I know of anywhere".
So in 1957, Paul Dietzel would hire LSU's 1st recruiting coordinator and many
other schools would soon follow suit. And LSU's 1958 team would be a surprise to
everyone except Johnny Vaught.
That '58 season went just as Vaught had expected. Both teams were undefeated
coming into their annual Halloween show down. Bu t this time both team s were
special. Ole Miss had finished in the Top 10 four of the previous 5 years. LSU
hadn't since the '49 season but more importantly to LSU fans, the Tigers hadn't
whipped the Rebs in 8 years.
This game was maybe the most hyped affair ever to date in the South as #1 LSU
would go against #4 Ole Miss. Airplanes flew the LSU campus for days before the
game dumping thousands of leaflets that simply said "Go To Hell LSU Go To Hell".
Here's a real controversial area. Some say that LSU countered by flooding our
campus with "Go To Hell Ole Miss Go To Hell" leaflets in response. Some say that
Dietzel had the leaflets dropped on the LSU campus in a real smart attempt to
fire up his troops and Vaught seeing this ploy countered by dropping the
leaflets on our campus so that the LSU boys would have no psycological edge on
our boys.
This game was a huge one in many respects. It was the 1st sellout of Tiger
St adium in history. Acco rding to Ron Higgins, an LSU alum and sports writer for
the Memphis Commercial Appeal, it was the birth of the "Go to Hell--Go To Hell"
cheer with both fanbases hurling it at each other frequently during the game.
This cheer became the standard cheer heard in the stadium for years and years
between these two schools and would later be copied by many others. And finally,
of course, it would be the 1st game played between Ole Miss and LSU that might
very well determine which team would win a NC.
The game was just about like every one in the country expected. The stats were
about even. The teams were about even but 2 goal line stands by a terrific bunch
of Chinese Bandits [LSU's best defensive team] was the difference in the game.
As usual, Vaught went into the game thinking we would whip 'em at Hemingway
South but knew that it would take a great effort because LSU's team was special.
They now had a great defen se.
LSU won the game 14-0 and a few weeks later won their 1st recognized NC. The big
win that night against a Top 4 Rebel team got them plenty of votes from
sportscasters and coaches to surpass Iowa in the final polls and maybe almost as
big, the jinx of losing to Ole Miss had been broken.
That Halloween night, LSU played probably their best game ever. It just couldn't
ever get better. But it did get better.