Mississippi
Tennessee football vs Mississippi State injury update: Tyre West now doubtful
Tennessee defensive lineman Tyre West was downgraded in the Mississippi State game on Saturday.
West was listed as doubtful on the SEC student-athlete availability report, which was updated on Thursday night. He was listed as questionable on Wednesday.
West, a junior, has a role in UT’s deep defensive rotation. He has 12 tackles, four tackles-for-loss, two sacks, one quarterback hurry and one forced fumble in eight games.
UT running back DeSean Bishop is out against Mississippi State after suffering a lower-body injury in a 28-18 win over Kentucky last week.
Bishop, a former Karns standout, has served as Dylan Sampson’s backup during his redshirt freshman season. He has rushed for 372 yards and three TDs in eight games. Last week, freshman Peyton Lewis replaced Bishop in the rotation.
No. 7 Tennessee (7-1, 4-1 SEC) plays Mississippi State (2-7, 0-5) on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) at Neyland Stadium.
Here’s the SEC student-athlete availability report for Tennessee and Mississippi State players.
Tennessee injury report
Mississippi State injury report
- QB Blake Shapen (out)
- CB Traveon Wright (out)
- WR Creed Whittemore (out)
- WR Trent Hudson (out)
- DL Kedrick Bingley-Jones (out)
- RB Keyvone Lee (out)
- DL Kalvin Dinkins (out)
- OL Canon Boone (out)
- DL De’Monte Russell (probable)
- WR Mario Craver (probable)
How SEC availability report works
The SEC student-athlete availability report was introduced this season for conference games only.
The initial report is released on Wednesday night of an SEC game week with daily updates leading to a final report 90 minutes prior to kickoff of a Saturday game.
Prior to game day, players are designated by their school as available, probable, questionable, doubtful or out for the upcoming game. On game day, they are designated as available, game-time decision or out.
Here’s what those designations mean:
• Out: Will not play, 0% chance to play.
• Doubtful: Unlikely to play, 25% chance to play.
• Questionable: Uncertain to play, 50% chance to play.
• Probable: Probable to play, 75% chance to play.
Per the SEC policy, schools must accurately designate players’ participation status. If the school has knowledge that a player may not be able to participate in the upcoming game for any reason (injury, illness, suspension, ineligibility or personal matter), it must report it.
Failure to do so will subject schools to potential penalties ranging from $25,000 for a first offense to $100,000 for a third and further offenses.
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.
Get the latest news and insight on SEC football by subscribing to the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.
Get the latest news and insight on SEC football by subscribing to the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.
Mississippi
SMU drops nonconference game at home as Mississippi State finds bench-led boost
Reserve KeShawn Murphy scored 16 points and led a quartet of Mississippi State bench players in double-digit scoring and the Bulldogs beat SMU 84-79 on Friday night.
Reserves RJ Melendez scored 15 points, Riley Kugel 13 and Claudell Harris Jr. 10. Josh Hubbard was the lone Mississippi State (5-0) starter in double figures with 14 points on just 4-for-18 shooting. The Bulldogs’ starters went 10 for 33 from the floor compared to the 18-for-35 effort from the bench.
Cameron Matthews made a layup with 5:13 remaining to break a tie at 66. Murphy made a 3-pointer and Kanye Clary made 1 of 2 free throws and Mississippi State led for the remainder.
Reserve Kario Oquendo scored 13 points for the Mustangs (4-2), Matt Cross, Boopie Miller and Samet Yigitoglu all had 12 points and B.J. Edwards scored 10.
Mississippi State will get almost a full week off before returning to action on Thanksgiving night at the Arizona Tipoff in Tempe. The Bulldogs play their first game of the event against UNLV.
The Mustangs will head to Palm Springs, California, for the Acrisure Holiday Invitational, where they face Cal Baptist on Tuesday.
Find more SMU coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
Mississippi
Attorneys want the US Supreme Court to say Mississippi’s felony voting ban is cruel and unusual
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft, attorneys say in new court papers.
Most of the people affected are disenfranchised for life because the state provides few options for restoring ballot access.
“Mississippi’s harsh and unforgiving felony disenfranchisement scheme is a national outlier,” attorneys representing some who lost voting rights said in an appeal filed Wednesday. They wrote that states “have consistently moved away from lifetime felony disenfranchisement over the past few decades.”
This case is the second in recent years — and the third since the late 19th century — that asks the Supreme Court to overturn Mississippi’s disenfranchisement for some felonies. The cases use different legal arguments, and the court rejected the most recent attempt in 2023.
The new appeal asks justices to reverse a July ruling from the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws.
Stripping away voting rights for some crimes is unconstitutional because it is cruel and unusual punishment, the appeal argues. A majority of justices rejected arguments over cruel and unusual punishment in June when they cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places.
Attorneys who sued Mississippi over voting rights say the authors of the state’s 1890 constitution based disenfranchisement on a list of crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit. A majority of the appeals judges wrote that the Supreme Court in 1974 reaffirmed constitutional law allowing states to disenfranchise felons.
About 38% of Mississippi residents are Black. Nearly 50,000 people were disenfranchised under the state’s felony voting ban between 1994 and 2017. More than 29,000 of them have completed their sentences, and about 58% of that group are Black, according to an expert who analyzed data for plaintiffs challenging the voting ban.
To regain voting rights in Mississippi, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. In recent years, legislators have restored voting rights for only a few people.
The other recent case that went to the Supreme Court argued that authors of Mississippi’s constitution showed racist intent when they chose which felonies would cause people to lose the right to vote.
In that ruling, justices declined to reconsider a 2022 appeals court decision that said Mississippi remedied the discriminatory intent of the original provisions in the state constitution by later altering the list of disenfranchising crimes.
In 1950, Mississippi dropped burglary from the list. Murder and rape were added in 1968. The Mississippi attorney general issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking, felony-level shoplifting and felony-level writing bad checks.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a 2023 dissent that Mississippi’s list of disenfranchising crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose.”
Originally Published:
Mississippi
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