In today's edition You Know It's Bad When…
Sept. 19 will mark two years since Ole Miss beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa. That win — coupled with a victory over the Crimson Tide a year earlier in Oxford — made the Rebels one of the more popular football programs in America. They handed mighty Alabama two of their three total losses between 2014-15 and are one of only three programs who have defeated a Saban-coached Bama team.
Two years after that thrilling 43-37 win at Bryant-Denny Stadium, Ole Miss football is at a lowest of lows. They're facing a self-imposed postseason ban and battling claims that they misled recruits about the NCAA investigation. Head coach Hugh Freeze — who will forever be attached to the school — then resigned for a "pattern of misconduct" and faces allegations of other bizarre behavior.
It's so bad that even prison inmates in Kansas are mocking them.
MORE: Mike Norvell and Other Candidates to Replace Hugh Freeze
Kyle Cole is an Ole Miss campus minister and senior staff member with Campus Crusade for Christ International, a nationwide organization with a mission to "win, build, and send Christ-centered multiplying disciples who launch spiritual movements." He and a friend recently visited inmates a maximum security prison in Kansas (presumably at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth).
“All of these guys are serving life sentences,” Cole told Bill Watkins of the Clarion-Ledger. “I was wearing an Ole Miss T-shirt, and they started making fun of me. They were like, ‘Wow, what’s going on down there?’ As we were leaving, I told my friend, ‘You know it’s bad when folks who are in prison for the rest of their lives are laughing about your circumstances.”
Though Cole made it clear this is not a laughing matter, it's still impossible to ignore the painful and uncomfortable irony of life-sentence-serving inmates poking fun at a football program.
