There’s a lot of Eli Manning ink presently, right? And there’s gonna be more; even the NCAA has plans to utilize the Manning name in public service announcements that will be aired during the many college football games around the nation.

Don’t fret, there’ll be scads of others appearing in those NCAA ads. I don’t know about you, but mention a well-known college football player, and I’m going to tune in right quick-like.

Give Eli credit for having a pretty good head on his shoulders. In particular, I refer to his decision to remain in school for his fifth-year senior season. Just makes sense. He probably knew all along what his fifth-year plans were. He’s not the only one hanging around for five years of college football. He’s just better known than some of those making that decision.

The University of Southern Mississippi has decided to look different this fall on the fields they’ll play this fall. I like to see teams do that all along. Same ol’ same ol’ gets to be same ol’ same ol’.

USM will be a new-look team this fall. Talkin’ about uniforms. It’s the first major redesign of things at USM since the early 1990s. At that time it was a &8220;dirty&8221; gold known as Vegas gold. Metallic-looking, the new color is closer to Green Bay Packer yellow than past years’ gold.

Not that all that means anything &045; it ain’t how you look but how you hit. And while this and that team’s teaching hittin’, all the same ball clubs are being taught with genuine certainty that blocking and tackling and hitting are the first things desired. Hit and go, then hit and go again.

This is college football we’re talking about! Showing the way on, oh, these many college practice fields, you know that full attention is demanded in every camp. Yeah, I like football, and I figure you do as well if you’re reading this.

ONLY football. Ducks don’t have any business dumping Bulldogs, but Oregon’s Ducks were flying all day Sunday when the ‘Dogs managed to lose to the Ducks, 42-34. Unbelievable &045; almost. Yep, State simply got dumped.

One reporter wrote after the game that &8220;Oregon provided one definitive answer at Scott Field (to questions that arose after the far-from-good Bulldog showing), which was: &8220;These&160;Bulldogs have a long, long way to go on defense.&8221; He had it right, in spades.

The only thing good about the Saturday night rumble was that 52,856 fans poured into Scott Field to see what was in reality a very good game that had but one bad feature &045; the home-standing Bulldogs lost.

The Bulldogs did show some fire when they rallied from a 28-0 deficit to make the big intersectional game interesting. After all, State trailed Oregon 42-21 in the final quarter. At the end of three &045; following a neat State trim job that changed the score from 28-0, Oregon to 28-21, Ducks.

MSU did score 13 points in the final quarter, but it was of course too little too late. Truth of the matter is that the game was interesting, which wasn’t the only object of the game, naturally.

Glenvall Estes is a longtime columnist for The Natchez Democrat.