Watch them Tigers this year,&uot; I’m hearing now and then from LSU football fans.

And it looks here like &uot;them&uot; rabid Tiger fans might have something there, because I look for LSU to be ranked with the better Southeastern Conference teams in season 2000.

A new head coach and an &uot;old&uot; starting quarterback could be the tandem needed down Baton Rouge way. It goes without saying, though, that only time will tell, and that goes for every SEC team.

The SEC is tough all over (from end to end), and that’s a safe assessment year in and year out. All pure college football fans know that it’s one of the most talked about conferences in this football nation.

I probably won’t be predicting SEC games per se each week this season, but my writing will be heavy SEC, as you would expect. I’ll be more selective as the occasion warrants. In other words I’ll predict more at some times than at others.

All 12 SEC schools crank up their 2000 seasons this weekend, and this is as good of a weekend as ever to just guess victories for all SEC teams. Yes, there are more gimmees than usual the first week.Or apparently so.

That being said, I am for a fact taking new LSU head coach Nick Saban’s Tigers to charge from the chute behind junior quarterback Josh Booty with a victory over Western Carolina Sept. 2. Watch them Tigers?

Ole Miss over Tulane and Mississippi State over Memphis; and in toughies, Alabama to nip UCLA and Tennessee to shade rugged Southern Mississippi. Arkansas to beat SW Missouri; Auburn over Wyoming; Florida over Ball State; Georgia past Ga. Southern; Kentucky over Louisville; South Carolina over New Mexico State; and Vandy over Miami of Ohio.

If that turns out to be sorry predicting, I can tell you now — blame it on sorry preparation. But you know what they say: &uot;Study long and study wrong.&uot;

4Adams County Christian School was her stage when Christy Lipscombe sang there at school and athletic functions a few years ago. But now the Vidalia native has starred on stage in Branson, Mo., and Eureka Springs, Ark. She now lives in Clinton, Ark.

Christy, daughter of former Vidalians Cindy and Bubba Lipscombe, will be back home for Vidalia’s extremely popular annual Jim Bowie Festival Sept. 9. Not as a spectator, but as a singer, to be sure. The old Courthouse Square in Vidalia will be a special place to be that day, because, folks, Christy’s really good.

My wife and I have heard her sing often, so that’s my recommendation and I’m sticking by it!

–Hurried Hash: The 1959 LSU-Ole Miss thriller wasn’t the only great football game in which the Tigers and Rebels tangled back in that era — not near-bout. But the night in ’59 that Tiger great Billy Cannon returned the last of many Ole Miss punts (with a 3-0 lead) 89 yards to nip the Rebels 7-3, there’s never been a more vociferous crowd in loud Tiger Stadium history, I don’t believe.

…And the very next season (’60) the two played again in Baton Rouge and wound up tied 6-6 in an epic struggle. Not to forget, though, that the 1959 teams played a Sugar Bowl rematch after Cannon’s winning romp on Halloween night, and Ole Miss thumped the Tigers 21-0.

…The 1961 Ole Miss-LSU game, played yet again in Baton Rouge, was another good one, with the Tigers winning 10-7. The Rebels won 15-7 in Tigertown the next year, but it was in ’63 that the Rebs smeared the Bengals 37-3.