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Mississippi State fans get #MadOnline at a newspaper headline: A story in 3 acts

Or "how to hate the story you wrote."

By The Ghost of Jay Cutler

This past weekend, Mississippi State won the outright SEC regular season championship in baseball. Going into the weekend, they were behind Florida and Texas A&M in the SEC standing and needed both teams to lose. On Saturday afternoon, after LSU had already handled their end of the bargain, Mississippi State was just a few outs away from getting the sweep over Arkansas when Ole Miss took game three against the Aggies, 3-2. Ole Miss' narrow win over Texas A&M had all but locked up the conference title for Mississippi State.

This made Bulldogs fans very happy, the irony of which was not entirely lost on them. They were happy that Ole Miss won something - anything! Granted, their happiness wasn't for Ole Miss, but that State fans were cheering for their most hated rival became a bit of a story of its own on Saturday.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger then told that story, via a headline that ran "Thanks Rebels: MSU Gets Help Winning SEC". State fans were *not* happy about this.

Here is that tale, told in three acts.

ACT I

State fans root for Ole Miss to win

This is Matt Wyatt, a State radio personality, @ing Ole Miss people (including our very own Michael Borkey!) in a video in which he cheers the Rebels on.

And Wyatt wasn't the only one!

And that he did! It wasn't exactly "glorious" but it was, uh, something.

And here's the Sports Information Director at Mississippi State. His job is to provide information about Mississippi State's sports teams to the news media and general public.

ACT II

The Clarion-Ledger runs a headline noting that State fans rooted for Ole Miss to win

ACT III

State fans get mad at The Clarion-Ledger for running a headline noting that State fans rooted for Ole Miss to win

Wait, didn't y'all say something earlier about...

You might notice that @BWonStateBeat is the same gentleman who once covered the Mississippi State beat for the Columbus Dispatch -- hence the Twitter handle. You then might, as we have, find some pretty delightful irony in a journalist who actively cheers for State and against Ole Miss attempting to grumble about how objective sports journalism should or shouldn't work.

EPILOGUE

We empathize with the frustrations of these Mississippi State fans. One would hope that the largest newspaper in Mississippi would write a story about the Mississippi State baseball team and their accomplishments, and not need a mention of Ole Miss in the headline to qualify them. The story should be about what they did and why it matters, and not told in a way that inflates the importance of a lone Ole Miss win in what is season's worth of baseball success.

But that's not the story the Clarion Ledger wrote because it's not the story that Mississippi State fans were telling on Saturday. Whoops.