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MSU president Mark Keenum declined to reveal the voting totals, but he said that his fellow presidents gave "overwhelming support for the cowbell. I'm so proud of the commissioner and his leadership, all of my colleagues, for recognizing that our fans did do the right thing in the latter half of our season last year. It'll allow us to have another season to demonstrate we can comply with the rules with our valued tradition of the cowbell."
Cowbells passed by a vote of 11-0 and Ole Miss abstained, NEMS Daily Journal's Parrish Alford reports.
"I didn't pretend that I could be objective with anything that had to do with competitive issues with Mississippi State," Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones said.
MSU will be fined $30,000 for not complying during the first two SEC home games last season, against Auburn and Georgia: $5,000 for the first offense, $25,000 for the second. The Bulldog faithful were in compliance the next two games (against Kentucky and Arkansas), and Keenum believes that will be the norm next season.
"That gave me the momentum I needed to demonstrate to my colleagues that we can comply with the rule," Keenum said. "There was a lot of doubt going into the season whether or not we could do this. Our fans showed that we could. That allowed me to make a compelling statement to my colleagues to allow us to have it for another season."
This is a one-year extension, which means it will be revisited next summer.
Other items: SEC caps football signees at 25, down from 28
DESTIN, Fla. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference has capped football signing classes at 25, a move coaches voted against and one school presidents hope will be adopted across college football.
The powerful league, which will hand out an SEC-record $18.3 million in shared revenue to each of its 12 schools, had allowed up to 28 players to be signed annually.
The SEC also voted Friday to eliminate divisions in men's basketball. The teams will now be seeded 1 through 12 in the postseason tournament, with the top four teams receiving first-round byes. The SEC will keep a 16-game league slate for 2011-12, but will increase the number of conference games the following season.
The conference also voted to ban graduate students from transferring and being eligible immediately.
Click here for more at Brad Locke's Inside Mississippi State Sports blog.
Click here for more at Parrish Alford's Inside Ole Miss Sports blog.
Read more in Saturday's NEMS Daily Journal newspaper.