Mississippi Today · Rick Cleveland and Tyler Cleveland · September 9, 2026
Join 35,000 readers who wake up informed. Sign up for our free daily newsletter to get the latest Mississippi news directly in your inbox every weekday.
By and large, Mississippi’s college football teams had a successful first weekend and the Clevelands break it down game by game, with some high school football on the side.
Related Stories
Crooked Letter Sports: It’s finally here! Eligibility issues are not new in college sports. Here’s the proof. Big-time money is sapping the joy from college sports, even from the start of football season Football weekend that was: Ole Miss survives while State, USM and JSU romp
Most Read Stories
Marshall Ramsey: Hotties 1966: Nichelle Nichols plays lead role on ‘Star Trek’ A complex jaw reconstruction surgery reaches Mississippi Disillusioned with the healthcare system, these physicians stopped taking insurance
Recent Stories
Receiver in charge of turning around Jackson’s water system now says city should sell it New thrift store aims to fill retail void left by closure of Family Dollar in south Jackson Laurene Powell Jobs and Darren Walker are keynote speakers for Mississippi Today 10th anniversary event Death row men lose personal tablet access after advocate shares their stories online
Rick Cleveland is a sports columnist for Mississippi Today . A Hattiesburg native, he has covered Mississippi sports for nearly six decades and is a member of both the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and the Mississippi Press Association Hall of Fame.
Tyler Cleveland is a senior reporter for Scorebook Live and the co-host of Mississippi Today's Crooked Letter Sports Podcast.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .
Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Mississippi Today’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications: Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button to copy the html code for the article. Please preserve our tracking code if at all possible, this helps us understand the impact and reach of our work and that helps us make the case to our funders to keep this work free for you to republish. You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kate Royals for more information). Learn more about our cartoon syndication services . You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. You can’t sell or syndicate our stories. Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization. If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @mstodaynews on Facebook , X , or Instagram , and @mississippitoday on TikTok . If you would like to collaborate with us on social platforms, get in touch with our audience team . For print publications: You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org . You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kate Royals for more information). Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t sell or syndicate our stories. You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection. Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization. If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @mstodaynews on Facebook , X , or Instagram , and @mississippitoday on TikTok . If you would like to collaborate with us on social platforms, get in touch with our audience team .
by Rick Cleveland and Tyler Cleveland, Mississippi Today September 9, 2026
Independent journalism depends on members like you. Join today and help sustain nonprofit news for Mississippi.
We use our own and third-party cookies and similar technologies to enhance and personalize your experience, analyze use of our website, and conduct marketing. For more information about these technologies, please see our Privacy Policy .