20 college football moments that deserve to be made into movies
By John Buhler
14. My Name is Mississippi Mud
In this movie, we’re going to have two of the most interesting cats in NFL history tell the tale of Brett Favre’s early days at Southern Miss: Favre himself and the guy who claimed to draft the wrong guy out of Mississippi in his former head coach Jerry Glanville.
Favre’s college story is almost as impressive as his NFL career with the Green Bay Packers. He may have had a cannon, but his dad ran the wishbone offense for him in high school because running backs were awesome apparently. Favre would receive only one scholarship to play college ball at Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles staff wanted him to play defensive back, but he’d rather just throw the football 70 yards to make his point.
Favre would go from the seventh quarterback on the Southern Miss depth chart in 1987 to starting mid-season against the Tulane Green Wave. He would remain the starter for the Golden Eagles through his senior season in 1990. Shortly before the start of the 1990 season, Favre would be involved in a nearly fatal car accident, one where his car flipped and he had to have 30 inches of his intestines removed.
A little more than a month later, Favre would get back under center and beat Gene Stallings’ Alabama Crimson Tide. The story would center around the highs and lows of Favre’s football career pre-Green Bay. Favre would eventually be a second-round pick by the Atlanta Falcons. All Glanville would use him for was to heave footballs into the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium stands to impress people.
Those two football men might have been oil and water, but Mississippi Mud and this dude who dressed in black and left tickets for Elvis at the gate should have been together for more than a year. Too bad Favre had his issues as a rookie in Atlanta and the Falcons have had mostly a dysfunctional existence as a franchise. Mississippi was something else for the Golden Eagles though, so never forget that.