The Clay Edwards Show

**Arch Manning’s Meme Apology**
Texas knocks off No. 1 Ohio State. Holly Rowe hypes the Buckeyes beforehand. Steve Sarkisian blows her off after the win. The internet does what the internet does: an AI clip of Sark pimp-slapping Rowe.
Arch Manning, 20 years old, gets asked about it at his press conference. He laughs. “It’s hilarious.”
That was enough. ABC World News Tonight puts a Manning nephew laughing at a fake video on national television like it’s a crime scene. Domestic violence. Hurtful words. Forced Instagram apology. Holly accepts. “Respect and kindness.” They even floated the kissing-and-making-up cut of the same meme.
Clay’s line: Evel Knievel couldn’t make that leap. A joke video is not a beating. If you tell the internet something bothers you, they will make sure it bothers you more. This is why sports stays on the show. The same people who want football players to stick to sports want Clay to stick to politics. Neither one is happening.
Mock the panic. Play the meme. Don’t pretend a kid laughing at AI is a moral emergency.

**Lane Kiffin’s Security Detail**
LSU is in Oxford. Lane Kiffin is walking back into the Grove as the opposing coach, and Mississippi is treating it like a state visit.
Largest Department of Public Safety footprint ever for a college game. Sixty-five to seventy troopers. CTED units. Tactical teams. Air ops. Mobile command. Traffic enforcement already rolling through Sunday. Oxford PD, University Police, Lafayette County, plus 10 to 15 Louisiana troopers traveling with the Tigers and LSU’s own protective unit.
Comments lit up: why are Mississippi taxpayers babysitting Louisiana’s coach? Creston’s answer was simple. You take care of everybody on your turf. Next year Ole Miss goes to Baton Rouge and will want the same courtesy.
They’re talking 400 to 500 thousand people in a town that usually sees a hundred thousand on a home Saturday. Trump rumors on top of it. If you weren’t out of Oxford yesterday, you’re there now.
Hate Week with a command post. That’s the security package for Lane.

**The Great Chicken Heist**
Memphis. Jackson’s sister city. Thirteen people caught behind a hotel on Lamar unloading pallets of chicken off an 18-wheeler. Quarter-million dollars of bird. Three guns on the scene. Felons in the mix. They tried to run. Task force bagged the whole crew.
Clay and Creston did what this show does: mock it till it cries. That’s a lot of chicken. Wings are already expensive. Thighs are through the roof. Somebody in that group thought a full reefer trailer was the ultimate caper and not one person said, “Bad idea.”
Where were they going to keep it cold? Who was buying it out the back door? Clay’s honest about it — stolen chicken for a restaurant is a health-code nightmare. Stolen chicken for a backyard barbecue is a different conversation.
Stereotypes didn’t walk onto that lot. Thirteen people did. The mugshots went on the screen. The jokes wrote themselves. Mock them till they cry, then make memes when they do. That’s the Great Chicken Heist.

**Ross Barnett Reservoir Rename Petition**
A Change.org petition wants the Ross Barnett Reservoir stripped of the name and given something more “inclusive.” Thirty-nine verified signatures. Shared more times than people actually signed it.
The pitch: history should be remembered, not honored. Ross Barnett blocked James Meredith at Ole Miss in 1962. The reservoir got his name in 1963. Now activists say recent Barnett family headlines — the Judy Barnett case out of Brandon — make the name unbearable in 2026.
The legislature has already taken swings at this. Last year they floated William Winter and Fannie Lou Hamer. This year somebody dropped a B.B. King Reservoir bill. Clay said if you’re picking poison, B.B. King is the least ridiculous of the bunch.
The rez is where people fish, boat, raise kids, and run businesses. Clay’s take is simple: “inclusive” is a hard no unless it means free drinks on a cruise. The name fight isn’t about the water. It’s about who gets to rewrite the map.

**The Clay Edwards Show – Sept. 17, 2026**
Sports, culture, and Mississippi reality in the same hour.
LSU rolls into Oxford this weekend and suddenly they’re Ole Miss’s biggest rival until Egg Bowl. Lane Kiffin’s swagger vs. Coach Golden, fair-weather fans chasing the winner, and why Amazon data centers and NCAA baseball regionals had more to do with the state flag coming down than any football player taking a knee.
Longtime caller Derek hits the line: Ole Miss homecoming queen controversy, the Confederate flag on campus, Cross Colors double standards, and the “no snitching” crowd that suddenly wants everybody talking about Horn Island and Nolan Wells.
A Change.org petition wants the Ross Barnett Reservoir renamed for “inclusivity.” 39 signatures. Clay and Creston walk through James Meredith, old legislation pushing Fannie Lou Hamer or B.B. King, and the recent Judy Barnett headlines that brought the name back up.
Condolences to Hinds County Chancellor Dwayne Thomas, who passed after a heart attack. Fair judge. Good reputation.
Then the internet did internet things: Arch Manning laughs at an AI meme of Steve Sarkisian slapping Holly Rowe after the Texas-Ohio State game. ABC World News Tonight treats it like a national crisis. Manning apologizes. Clay and Creston refuse to pretend a joke video is domestic violence.
Mississippi DPS is rolling out the largest security presence ever for a college game in Oxford. Troopers, air ops, Louisiana units traveling with LSU, rumors Trump could show. Taxpayers footing the bill while people argue Louisiana should pay for their own coach.
No lectures. No “positive solutions” from the same crowd that’s been running things. Just the show.

**Clay Edwards Show — Sept. 16, 2026**  Sports, FAFO, Fortune, and why “just comply” still isn’t optional.
Clay and Creston Berch bounce from content-creation reality to Saturday’s slate, then land on the cases that actually move the needle in Mississippi.
Clay’s unsolicited seminar: if you’re getting into this to get rich in 90 days, you’re already cooked. Love the topic enough to do it free for a decade, treat radio (or whatever your real job is) as the ship and social as gravy, and never build a lifestyle on an algorithm that can vanish after one mass-report. Fake sponsors first so the next guy doesn’t have to be first. Niche beats “influencer.” Local Jackson news paid the bills; national sports clips pay YouTube.
Football: LSU at Ole Miss is the Magnolia Bowl again in Oxford — scheduling quirk from the nine-game slate and Texas/Oklahoma addition, not a conspiracy. Night game, ABC, GameDay on site, extra security, and a rumor the President might drop in. Clay says raise hell in the stadium, keep your hands to yourself. Dabo isn’t getting fired midseason no matter how ugly the portal/NIL adjustment looks; Belichick at South Carolina this weekend will still light the effigy if Clemson loses. State vs. South Carolina: Clay takes the Bulldogs straight up. Best-looking squad since Leach’s last year, Camarillo Taylor the most dynamic QB since Dak, Zach Arnett back as DC after the grown-up “no bridge too burned” call. Seven-to-nine wins and another Dak-type year isn’t crazy if they survive the gauntlet.
FAFO of the week: three burglary suspects out of Greyhawk in Gluckstadt lead Madison and Rankin on a multi-county chase that ends with them bailing into El Potrillo in Flowood. Listeners thought ICE was raiding a Mexican restaurant. It was just three guys who picked the wrong county to break into a house. Not the usual suspects. Rankin K-9 and inter-agency work closed it without a wreck or worse.
Tasia Fortune: Jarquez Ratliff, a Black man, is charged. Jasmine Crockett’s “modern-day lynching” presser has gone quiet. Online comments insist “our kind don’t do stuff like this” and that he couldn’t have gotten her in the tree without a fire truck. Clay’s point: the same crowd would never say that if the suspect were White. This was never justice for Fortune or Nolan Wells. It’s revenge math for Carmelo Anthony.
Traffic-stop segment with 30-year retired Clinton PD Creston Birch: the “talk” Black parents supposedly have that White parents don’t. Clay’s version of the talk is “license out, hands on the wheel.” The no-comply, “I want a supervisor,” camera-phone lottery is self-inflicted and aimed at the Ben Crump payday. Force continuum, explain-the-stop vs. ID-first training, fake seizures, mental-health calls versus knives — experience still beats the viral script.
Different show. Sports, culture, crime, and the same refusal to swallow the narrative. Same time tomorrow.

the viral Texas-Ohio State crowd shot, H-1Bs, assimilation vs. neighborhood takeover, and why “just enforce the law” still makes half the room clutch pearls.

An old friend texts Clay at 9 p.m.: you’re making money but you sold your soul. You’re a loser. You’re not the same Clay from 15–20 years ago.
Clay’s answer: I sure hope I’m not. That Clay was a partyaholic club promoter who woke up broke on his parents’ couch at 34 watching the truck get repoed. Growth isn’t selling out. Talking about the people who actually commit the crime around here isn’t selling out either. Culture rot is two words, not a conspiracy.

**Clay Edwards Show — September 15, 2026**  Guests: Creston Berch (in studio) & Zach Servis (Hour 2)
An old friend texts Clay at 9 p.m.: you’re making money but you sold your soul. You’re a loser. You’re not the same Clay from 15–20 years ago.
Clay’s answer: I sure hope I’m not. That Clay was a partyaholic club promoter who woke up broke on his parents’ couch at 34 watching the truck get repoed. Growth isn’t selling out. Talking about the people who actually commit the crime around here isn’t selling out either. Culture rot is two words, not a conspiracy.
One year to the day after Trump signed the Memphis Safe Task Force memo, the scoreboard is ugly for the “positive solutions” crowd:
- Homicides down 26–44%  - Carjackings cut nearly in half  - Violent crime down ~36–40%  - 11,700 arrests, 2,000+ illegal guns, 1,200+ known gang members  - Beale Street and downtown measurably better than a year ago (still not Disneyland at 2 a.m.)
Jackson’s numbers are heading the other direction. Homicides up roughly 30–39% year-to-date after years of decline from the 2021 bloodbath. Solve rates are high. The shootings haven’t stopped. Auto theft and business robberies are ugly. JPD is short-staffed and everybody knows it.
Should John Horhn pick up the phone? Should Tate Reeves? Zach Servis (calling from Texas) and Creston Berch break down why both parties keep finding reasons not to. Politics over body count. Again.
Also in Hour 2: the viral Texas-Ohio State crowd shot, H-1Bs, assimilation vs. neighborhood takeover, and why “just enforce the law” still makes half the room clutch pearls.
No positivity theater. Just the numbers and the part nobody wants to say out loud.

**The Clay Edwards Show – Episode 1294**
Clay was one bad night away from missing the show and still showed up. That’s the energy.
Mississippi State rolled a Big Ten team on the road and looked like a program that actually wants to go bowling. Ole Miss handled business. Southern Miss did not. Clay vs Grok college football picks stay close: Clay still leads the season 37-11 to 34-14 after another strong week picking winners. Over/unders tried to ruin everybody. This weekend’s real question is simple — whose game is the must-win? State at South Carolina for bowl hopes, or Ole Miss at home in the spotlight. Murderers’ row is coming either way.
Then the main event. Tasia Fortune’s hanging death in Jackson produced an arrest: 51-year-old Jarques “Jock” Ratliff, Black male. Not the roving white supremacist gang the activists and some media spent days implying. Police say they interviewed 15 people, spent hundreds of hours, and more arrests may be coming. The boyfriend/person of interest was already locked up on a gun charge. Chief Brackney’s presser left more questions than answers.
Russ Latino’s post lays it out clean: Trey Reed at Delta State had video, texts, and two autopsies pointing to suicide. Corey Zukadis — the white homeless man found hanging the same day — got treated like a footnote. National and local outlets still reached for Mississippi’s lynching history before the facts were in. The “cavalry” (Black Panthers, BLM affiliates, Fred Hampton types) showed up in small numbers, held signs, chanted in front of Medgar Evers’ house, offered water nobody asked for, and never made it to the “white neighborhoods” they promised. Screenshot of their own flyer got reverse-image-searched back to an old protest. Classic.
Also in the mix: Sophie Cunningham’s new photos and the left’s instant race-bait attempt that MAGA simply does not care about. A Chris Benoit comparison nobody asked for. The “it’s only racist if White people say it” screenshot. And a Gen X checklist that still checks every box.
Facts over feelings. Narrative over evidence. Same as it ever was.
Creston Berch in studio. No sugar. No filter.