You fight with facts…this is not fair

Just as the two warring factions in the now infamous Billboard Wars of the Magnolia state came word that a rag tag bunch of a misfit’s militia has sent volleys at both sides of this great conflict with intents to enter the fray.  Southern Miss, they of the Top 25 ranked Conference USA Championship lineage, have approached from, obviously, the south, and seemingly wish to enter the debate with both guns blazing by, more than likely, emptying their entire 2012 marketing budget for a billboard in Hattiesburg.  Not the most tactical of advances, but notable, nonetheless.

And while the Yellow Buzzard squadrons were executing the full attack, one of the more traditional combatants had it’s intial attack apparently rebuked by the international governing body that oversees such things.  It seems that Mississippi State’s billboard that was gracing the byways entering Oxford has been taken down…by mandate of the NCAA. It turns out that that billboard was just a little too close to a potential Mississippi State recruit, in this case Lafayette’s monstorous QB prospect Jeremy Liggins, for the NCAA’s liking.  As Rule 13.4.3.1 states, “the publication of advertising or promotional material, by or on behalf of a member institution, designed to solicit the enrollment of a prospective student-athlete is not permitted”. 

Im sure, of course, that the NCAA came to this conclusion in this case independently of any outside influence from say, the school in Mississippi that produces the lion’s share of the lawyers, who spend a good bit of time reading up on rules and the like.  Certainly an under handed move by “the school up North”….but hey, war is hell.