Dude, what is your real reason for being mad at Southern? Is it because you didn't like our outfits. Seems to me if a school got its ass kicked by your school and decided not to play your school again, should be totally insignificant to you. But I guess there has to be a reason to your madness. Maybe you like telling folks you don't speak their language. :lol:
Do you really wanna know what my issue is with Southern?
It's easy....in 2002, I think...there was a discussion for McNeese and Southern to play...a contract was sent over and - apparently - signed. Southern announced the series....then Pete got pissed off and said that if he was gonna hafta play Northwestern and McNeese, he might as well be IN the SLC. Suddenly, another announcement came out that the contract HADN'T been signed and that there would be NO series...
Okay...fine....then send us back our unsigned contract...
Crickets....Southern indicated they wouldn't be sending the contract back. Now why would you suppose that somebody wouldn't send back a contract that they announced had been signed, then announced hadn't been signed???
Seems like only ONE logical reason to me...
So..then that brings us to the Grambling series. It was a great series...lots of great interaction between the fans...and some really good games, particularly the 2003 game. That was a damned hard fought contest. That's what Football is all about....
So....back to Southern...
That game got made because three former Cowboys started a conversation, then two of them went off and got it done. I spoke to former Poke kicker Pat Neck, who had coached Breck Ackley, Southern's kicker and who was close to the Southern staff AND the McNeese staff...we talked about what a great thing it would be to get the La. SWAC schools in a set of series against the SLC schools. We even talked about the possibility of having a Double Header game between McNeese/Northwestern/SU and Grambling in S'port...or wherever! From there, I talked to former Poke linebacker John Belton (one of my teammates) and made the pitch for a McNeese/Southern game. He was on the Southern Board and had graduated from both schools, so he loved the idea....I put Pat and John in touch with each other (Pat's younger than us) and they pitched the idea to the coaching staffs and a couple of weeks later, voila! There was a deal...
Because of the way the earlier contract was handled there was a LOT of negativity from the McNeese folks who didn't want the series...I talked that shit up at every opportunity and all I heard was how Southern wouldn't honor the contract. That we'd go there and they'd find a reason to back out...Man, I assured them that wouldn't be the case...Once upon a time, I was probably the most prolific poster on the old McNeese Delphi board and I spent a lot of time talking about what a great thing that the series with Southern could be. Didnt' have a DAMN thing to do with money...I thought it was the right thing to do...Earlier in my life, I was a sports writer. I covered Grambling on more than a few occasions and got to talk to Coach Rob several times. I thought it would be a great thing to play the SWAC schools. It just made sense. How can two leagues have the same geographic footprint, in the same division, and NOT play?? Seemed stupid not to...
So..in good faith, we DID go to Southern first. And Southern DID back out without even trying to reschedule us to return the home and home...but they scheduled Nicholls, so CLEARLY, it wasn't about reluctance to play an SLC school...
Since then I've heard all sorts of things out of the Southern fan base...except the phrase.."Yeah, we should have honored the back end of the home and home."
The truth is, I don't care if we schedule y'all or not. In fact, I'd probably advocate against it as hard as I advocated for it, earlier. I'd LOVE to play any other team in the SWAC. I wouldn't support signing another contract with Southern. The buy out got paid, so it's water under the bridge....
Y'all are fun to mess with, though....
opcorn: this gon be good. 
