Thursday, September 7 Mississippi schools feeling snubbed by the bowls By Pat Forde Special to ESPN.com

Mississippi and Mississippi State don't need any more add-ons to their multi-level persecution complexes, but danged if the Southeastern Conference and its bowl partners didn't give them one.

	Jackie Sherrill's Bulldogs were passed over by the Outback Bowl.

State fans are howling because their 9-2 Bulldogs were passed over for the Outback Bowl in favor of 7-4 Georgia. No beach, no New Year's Day, no high-profile Big Ten opponent. Mississippi State instead was sent to the Peach Bowl in blasé-blasé Atlanta to face a 6-5 Clemson squad. (OK, no bowl locale is truly blasé if you're leaving Starkville to get there.)

The Rebels fans are muttering because they drew the nightmare of all bowl assignments: 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 31, 1999, in the Independence Bowl. In Shreveport. Outside of jail time, is there anything more depressing than paying good money to celebrate the end of the century in ... Shreveport?

And in the meantime, a 6-5 Kentucky team that includes a victory over I-AA Connecticut on its ledger lands in the Music City Bowl. You do not need a college degree to know that Nashville beats Shreveport as a bowl destination.

So it is an understandably feisty time. State and Ole Miss combined to go 16-6 -- their best combined record since 1963, when they went 14-3-4 -- and have a pair of middling bowl bids to show for it.

That's the predicament in the hyper-competitive SEC, where eight teams were bunched together tightly for spots in postseason play. Life in Bowlville, where turnstiles talk, is occasionally unfair.

Georgia likely got the nod over Mississippi State for the Outback Bowl because of its greater proximity to Florida, its larger following, its more productive offense (State is tough as they come, but not terribly explosive) -- and the fact that the Bulldogs were the ones crying last year after being dissed by the Outback. Georgia beat Kentucky head-to-head and finished with a better record, but it did not have Tim Couch and its fans did not figure to buy the 30,000 seats Big Blue gobbled up.

So this year the other Dogs are doing the howling. Whether he had much to do with it or not, SEC commissioner and bowl czar Roy Kramer is not a popular man at the moment in Starkville.

"It's all about respect," Mississippi State cornerback Fred Smoot said after the news was received last Sunday night. "We just feel like we were denied respect. We thought we'd be going to the Citrus or Outback, but we're excited about the Peach. Atlanta will be a great place to cap off a 9-2 season."

Dreaming of the Citrus is a bit delusional, given the presence of Tennessee, Alabama and Florida ahead of the Dogs in the pecking order for the top three destinations. (The Volunteers and Crimson Tide are in the BCS games, making the Gators a natural for the Citrus Bowl).

But some fans are also begrudging Arkansas the Cotton Bowl, despite the fact that the Hogs beat the Dogs and are guaranteed to bring an army of fans to Dallas to renew their great old rivalry with Texas.

Memo to Mississippi State: Ease off, chill out, have a Coke and a smile, eat a burger at The Varsity, shop at Underground Atlanta, dine in Buckhead, have a drink at Club Martini. Enjoy yourselves. But try to avoid the Gold Club, lest you turn up in the next federal investigation.

As for Ole Miss: Like Georgia last year, their bowl destination was basically scuttled by Kentucky. The Rebels had the better record, but couldn't be counted on to nearly fill 67,000-seat Adelphia Stadium on their own.

Welcome home, Wildcats
Kentucky will be playing a de facto home game in Nashville. It brought nearly 20,000 fans to the city in November for a game against Vanderbilt and could double that number for the bowl game against Syracuse. With backing like that, the choice was a two-foot putt for the Music City Bowl.

The Wildcats have had two great years of bowl luck. And more than any other team, they owe it to their fans, who have upgraded their teams' attractiveness significantly.

As South Carolina basketball coach Eddie Fogler once said of the UK hoops following, "Blue gets in."

Blue is also getting into the job market in a big way, as Hal Mumme pulls a Rick Pitino Jr.

Now Mumme's assistants are starting to branch out. After spending a year turning Oklahoma into a passing team, former Kentucky assistant Mike Leach was named head coach at Texas Tech. And current quarterbacks coach Chris Hatcher just got Mumme's old job at Division II Valdosta (Ga.) State at the tender age of 26.

Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.