Are Mississippi State fans really this denomination of SEC congregation?

Mitchell with SEC Roll Call on Finebaum show takes interesting shot at Bulldogs' faithful

Matt Mitchell with SEC Roll had an interesting label for Mississippi State fans on which congregation they were in the SEC church. | Matt Mitchell-YouTube

STARKVILLE, Miss. — The first week after SEC Media Days opened Monday with a surprise edition of SEC Shorts, and comedian Matt Mitchell, creator of SEC Roll Call, stopped by The Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network to complete the comedic doubleheader.

Mitchell, known for parodying SEC fan bases, described Mississippi State’s followers as “essentially the Pentecostal of the group” in an interview with Finebaum, ranking their enthusiasm and noise among the most notable in the conference.

Bulldogs fans may not be particularly fond of the reference, but after a 2-10 season that's about as good as they're going to get because there's probably only so many times you can parody ringing a cowbell.

Each fall, Mitchell shifts from his southern food-centered sketches to lampooning the “congregations” — as he calls them — of fans whose weekends rise and fall with their teams’ wins and losses.

“It’s really just, you know, kind of turning a mirror onto the fan bases and letting them see, kind of what they look like and how outrageous they can be,” Mitchell said. “Because every fan base in the SEC is pretty unique, because it’s not really — we’re not fan bases at all. We’re like congregations, and each congregation is like a different denomination.”

He went on to assign further religious or irreverent identities to SEC schools, likening Texas A&M and its rituals to “Catholicism all the way through” and calling Missouri fans “the atheists.”

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Mitchell said most followers seem to take his weekly portrayals in stride, “99% of each fan congregation is pretty level-headed, but you’ve got that 1% that’s very vocal and has a hard time spelling words correctly. And every fan base has got them [including Arkansas].”

Still, there are some persistent critics. Mitchell said one group stands out: Texas fans, who frequently message him to ask why their school isn’t featured in his SEC Roll Call skits — sometimes not realizing they’re watching reruns from 2021. “That’s just frustrating on my end,” Mitchell said.

If SEC football teams were fast food joints pic.twitter.com/Uhm6uDBZHz

— Matt Mitchell (@ALostrich) November 21, 2024

Yet, one interaction even topped the Texas fans: Auburn coach Hugh Freeze, according to Mitchell, messaged him after a video compared Auburn to McDonald’s, saying both are “run by clowns.”

“I was shocked when I got the message,” Mitchell said, “because I thought it was in his contract to not touch social media. So this was news to me — welcome back to the internet, Hugh, I guess.”

Mitchell rarely releases multiple offseason videos, but this year he has posted two: the latest depicts SEC teams trying to recruit fans, while another imagines each football program meeting its school’s basketball team in the spring.