Keffer McGee’s No. 21 appears to be safe.

There is a Facebook page devoted to stopping Mississippi State’s football team from unretiring the jersey of the late ex-Bulldog running back. McGee drowned to death on Aug. 5, 1997, in a Starkville apartment complex pool, two days before preseason camp began. It would have been his senior year.

Apparently, one of the the Bulldogs’ incoming freshmen had requested the No. 21. McGee’s mother is adamant that request isn’t fulfilled. I spoke with Matilda McGee this morning, and she said she will not grant MSU permission to bring Keffer’s number out of retirement.

“They’re not going to use it. I’m not gonna let them use it,” she said.

Ms. McGee will be informing second-year head coach Dan Mullen of that as soon as she can get him on the phone. He called her the other day to ask her what she thought of the possibility, but she was unable to speak at the time. She has since called back but was told Mullen is out of the office until Wednesday, so she’ll try again then.

A team spokesman told me this morning that the team will respect the family’s wishes regarding the jersey number.

“We won’t do anything at all without the family’s total support, and we will continue to honor the memory of Keffer.”

Ms. McGee said the player who’d requested No. 21 was from Hattiesburg, so that would make it either running back Jay Hughes or receiver Robert Johnson, both from Oak Grove High School. It should be noted that skill position players often desire jersey numbers in the single digits, teens and lower 20s; and nobody on the roster is currently wearing No. 21.

“That was my child, and any time you’ve got a record like he had, not saying that he was famous or nothing, but that he was a football player, and once you retire something you’re not supposed to take it loose,” Ms. McGee said. “Especially after he’s done passed on.”

As a junior, McGee was leading the SEC in rushing (481 yards) before suffering a season-ending knee injury three games into the season. He’d rushed for 1,072 yards as a sophomore.

There is apparently some coldness between Ms. McGee and the football program. I asked if the program had been good to her over the years, and she replied, “No, no, no, no. Not since Jackie left there.”

That’s Jackie Sherrill, of course, who coached MSU from 1991-2003. With Mullen having the courtesy to reach out to Ms. McGee instead of just jerking her son’s jersey numer out of retirement, though, perhaps that relationship will warm up.