With 1:22 left in the first half of the 2017 Egg Bowl, Ole Miss defensive end Breeland Speaks recovered a Mississippi State fumble and meme’d himself into college football history by facetiously waving in the direction of ESPN’s sideline camera. You remember this scene, because it was Thanksgiving night, and probably nothing else was going on in the college football world.
Breeland Speaks recovered a fumble, and says “hi.” pic.twitter.com/Ee4i7Pb0wM
— Barrett Sallee (@BarrettSallee) November 24, 2017
A wonderful bit of internet virality on a night that saw D.K. Metcalf fake urinate all over Mississippi State’s end zone. Here, let’s remember that hilarity too.
Ole Miss’s D.K. Metcalf just did the @OBJ_3 dog peeing TD celebration pic.twitter.com/S6idp1eVxV
— Jeff Eisenband (@JeffEisenband) November 24, 2017
ANYWAY, Speaks was interviewed by AL dot com on Monday, and he opened up about which particular individual he was waving at on CLANGA’s sideline after recovering a key fumble late in one of the country’s most pointlessly vitriolic rivalry games. Spoiler: it wasn’t ESPN’s camera or cameraman. It was then Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen.
Dan freaking Mullen. That’s amazing, and his rationale for trolling Mullen is even more impressive (emphasis added):
“I got your football,” Speaks said of what his message was after the play. “I couldn’t have picked a better way to finish (my college career). Going viral, probably that’s something I’ve never really thought of. Come back to my phone and you got ESPN got you on their Instagram page, everybody got you on their Instagram page. It was just crazy.”
Speaks logged 12 tackles in the Rebels’ 31-28 win before getting ejected for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. That doesn’t matter, though, because he gave the world a delightful instance of college football pettiness, and that pettiness was directed straight at the rival team’s coach. Perhaps this embarrassment is what ultimately drove Dan Mullen to jump ship from Starkville to Gainesville. It’s impossible to know, so we’re just asking questions here.
At any rate, it’d be a real shame if anyone relentlessly tweeted this picture at @CoachDanMullen. A real damn shame.