I woke up Sunday morning and one of the first things I did was check the college football scores from Saturday's games.  I went to ESPN.com and saw the big games' scores on the front page, then went to the scores page and selected the Southeastern Conference.  Way down there at the bottom of the page were the Ole Miss Rebels, who had played a little Division 1-AA scrub team called Jacksonville State.  I figured the only question was how badly the Rebels beat them – by 30 points?  40 points?  Etc.  Yet the score read "Jacksonville State 49, Ole Miss 48, 2OT."

I literally sat there staring at the screen with my mouth open for a few seconds.  I just couldn't process it.

It had been a topsy-turvy week already for the Rebels, with the NCAA first denying Jeremiah Masoli, the transfer QB from Oregon with an, ahem, "checkered past," then reversing that decision on Friday, the day before the Jacksonville State game.

But that is in no way an excuse for Ole Miss losing that game.  It's their worst loss that I can recall, and probably their worst loss ever.  I read an article that said Ole Miss had never lost to a Division 1-AA team.  Last season the Rebels, who were picked as high as the number four team in the nation at the beginning of the season, had to wait until the third game to be completely unmasked by South Carolina.  This is so, so much worse.

Basically, I feel like their season is over already – before it even got started good.  It doesn't matter if they win the next 11 games – which they won't – they still lost to Jacksonville State.  (And I'm not taking anything away from Jacksonville State – they were obviously the better team at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday and deserved the win.)

But for us long-suffering Rebel fans, this is about as bad as it gets.

Somewhere out there, Colonel Rebel is crying in his confederate handkerchief.