Jackson Free Press

As we enter another football season, it's time to reflect on the best and worst I've ever seen—in more years than I can count—of going to games and getting paid to write about what I observed:

• Best game I ever saw: State 6, Bama 3, 1980. No touchdowns, but all the drama you can imagine.

• Best player I ever covered: Walter Payton, hands down. He could run, block, throw, catch and kick, and he played every play of every game of every season as if his life was on the line.

• Best quote I ever got: Duane Thomas, when asked about playing in the ultimate game, meaning the Super Bowl: "If it's the ultimate game, then how come they'll play it again next year?"

• Best story I ever covered: The New Orleans Saints' run to the Super Bowl championship in 2009-10 with the Crescent City still reeling from Hurricane Katrina.

• Only college football miracle I ever saw: Mother Nature, in the form of a sudden 60 mph gust of wind, blocked Artie Cosby's field goal, preserving a 24-23 Egg Bowl victory for Ole Miss in 1983.

• Emory Bellard's immortal quote after the miracle: "God just decided that Mississippi State was not going to win this game today."

• Most poignant football moment I ever witnessed: Steve McNair set the NCAA record for most yardage gained in a career in 1994. They stopped the game, and McNair gave the football to his mother, who had raised him alone while working the overnight shift at a Simpson County factory.

• Favorite TV announcer: The late, great and rarely straight Dandy Don Meredith. This was in the very first ABC "Monday Night Football" game in 1970: Browns vs. Jets. The Browns had a receiver named Fair Hooker. First name: Fair. Last name: Hooker. Dandy Don: "Fair Hooker, that's a great name, isn't it? But I haven't met one, yet."

• Another Dandy Don moment, just for kicks: "We're live tonight from the Mile High City, and I really am ..."

• Favorite football radio announcer: Gotta be Jack Cristil.

• Favorite Cristil line of all-time: After an Egg Bowl during which Ole Miss thoroughly drubbed Cristil's Bulldogs, he said, "And the Sonic Drive of the game will be my drive home to Tupelo tonight."

• Best halftime show: Forget the Super Bowl extravaganzas—just give me Jackson State's Sonic Boom of the South and the Prancing J-Settes.

• Best fight song: Michigan's "The Victors," as in, "Hail to the Victors." Not even close, and I don't even like Michigan.

• Best college football-game atmosphere: Tiger Stadium on a Saturday night.

• Best college football atmosphere where the visiting fans need to wear helmets: Tiger Stadium on a Saturday night.

• Worst two minutes we'll never get back: TV timeouts—all of them. I hate them. I really do. I despise them. I loathe them. Yes, and on deadline, I feared them.

• Worst football cliche: Name a coach, any coach. They all said, "We're gonna play them one game at a time," as if any other coach on this planet ever had a choice.

• Most helpless I ever felt on deadline: Arkansas beat Ole Miss 58-56 in seven overtimes in 2001. My deadline passed between the fifth and sixth overtimes and during the 47th $#@%&*^%$ TV timeout.

• Worst injustice in college football: Coaches such as Nick Saban and Mack Brown make more than $5 million per year. Yet, Johnny Manziel (who single-handedly beat Saban on his homefield) isn't allowed to sell his autograph for five bucks.

• Worst injustice in pro football: Ray Guy, the best punter in the history of the sport, is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

• Second worst injustice in pro football: In the Louisiana Superdome, even a watered-down Miller Lite costs $8.

• Best place to tailgate: The Grove in Oxford. It really does live up to the hype.

• Second best place to tailgate: Dreamland Barbecue in Tuscaloosa, then drive to Bryant-Denny Stadium. (Tip: Wear the bibs or wear the sauce.)

• Best press-box food: Still waiting ...

• Best press-box post-game bar: Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. And they'll let you drink until the traffic clears, which is a long, long, long time.

• Most famous newspaper lede of all-time: When Notre Dame beat Army in 1924, Grantland Rice wrote, "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horseman rode again." Famous? Yes. Make sense? No. Rice watched from the press box, but seems to me he wrote from the perspective of an earthworm or a cricket.

Rick Cleveland is executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Follow him on Twitter @rick_cleveland.