Dan Mullen sees no difference between $10-a-pop cowbells and 130-year-old oak trees.
He thinks trying to keep Mississippi State fans from ringing illegal noisemakers during a football game is an insult on par with trying to poison the Toomer's Corner trees in Auburn.
Does that mean the State football coach also believes that Mike Slive is a well-spoken, clean-shaven Harvey Updyke?
"I empathize with Auburn this year," Mullen said last week at the SEC spring meeting in Destin. "Somebody came in and tried to hurt one of their traditions. I can empathize with that because it's happened to us."
No, it hasn't.
No one has tried to take away the right of Mississippi State fans to keep and bear cowbells. No one has tried to confiscate them, melt them down and sell them for scrap metal.
he Bullies can buy them across the parking lot from the stadium at the Barnes and Noble campus bookstore. They can ring them before and after the game till the cows come home.
They can even take them into the stadium and ring them at prescribed times during a game, thanks to the generous "cowbell compromise" the league reached last year and approved again for this year.
It's wonderful that Mullen has embraced the bell, but he should know that all "attacks" on tradition aren't created equal. There's a big difference between enforcing an SEC rule that passed three decades ago and breaking the law.
Look. Mullen is good at a lot of things. In addition to his talent at coaching up quarterbacks and drawing up plays, he has a unique ability to get under people's skin. Good coaches often do.
This isn't the first time Mullen, intentionally or not, has insulted Auburn, but he's going about it all wrong. It's time he stopped talking about the Tigers and tried a different approach.
Like beating them.
