Will Dak Prescott Set the School Record for Wins by a Quarterback?

We have all read and seen just how great Dak Prescott is and has been for Mississippi State. He has set numerous records for the school, and the next school record he is likely to break this season is the career rushing yards by a quarterback. He trails only John Bond in that category by less than 300 yards.

I have tried to figure out which record he owns and which ones he doesn’t. And for the ones that he doesn’t, I’ve tried to figure out the ones he could get to before he exhausts his eligibility at the end of the 2015 season.

Then I came across a record I had not considered. I was made aware of this record when Bill Martin sent out this tweet a little earlier today.

Is it possible for Dak Prescott to set the record for wins by a quarterback? It’s obviously possible. The Bulldogs have 9 games left and if they won all nine, they  would play in a bowl and have a chance for ten. Presumably, if they won all nine remaining games, he would play in the SEC Championship Game and have a chance to surpass it even more.

Now, I personally hate crediting quarterbacks for wins. There is no more of a true team sport than football. Sure, quarterback is the most important position, but I have never believed that a quarterback should have a win/loss record.

But what is the probability of him setting the record, or at least tying it, and if he can’t do either of those, how close can he get? Here is what the analytics experts say.

According to ESPN’s FPI ranking, the Bulldogs are projected to finish 7-5 this year. Here is our remaining schedule and the percent chance we will win in those games according to their FPI.

• Auburn – 50.4%
• Texas A&M – 25.7%
• Troy – 97.5%
• Louisiana Tech – 79.4%
• Kentucky – 77.1%
• Missouri – 61.8%
• Alabama – 29.7%
• Arkansas – 47.9%
• Ole Miss – 19.7%

ESPN isn’t the only site that projects win probabilities, but they are the only ones I could find while I was typing this up. So here is the way I look at this. It needs to be broken down into a few categories.

• Greater than 75%: Should win solidly
• 56% – 74%: Should win and would be a mild upset if they lost
• 45% – 55%: Could go either way
• 25% – 44%: Likely to lose and would be a mild upset if they won
• Less than 25%: : Would require a major upset

According to ESPN, the Bulldogs should easily win 3 more games, and be the favorite against Missouri. If they are accurate, this would get the Bulldogs to bowl eligibility with 6 wins and leave Prescott 5 wins short of the mark at 20 win and in third place.

If the Bulldogs were able to get the two toss up games against Auburn and Arkansas, Mississippi State would then have 8 wins on the season, and Prescott would still be in third with 22 wins and a chance for another to get his total to 23.

For Prescott to tie the mark, it will require Mississippi State winning all of the above games, and upsetting Alabama and Texas A&M and winning the bowl game to move to 10 wins and an 11th to tie Madkin.

Setting the mark would require three upsets, one being a significant upset over Ole Miss. You can agree or disagree with the percentages, I’m just telling you what I found on ESPN.

Now, these percentages change from week to week. So if the Bulldogs perform better than expected against Auburn this week and Texas A&M does worse than people expect against Arkansas, the winning percentages for the Texas A&M game are likely to change.

If you go to Football Outsiders’ F+ rankings, you’ll see how they rank each team. These aren’t projections, but you can probably get an idea of how they think the games will turn out. Only three of the Bulldogs remaining opponents are rated higher than Mississippi State. Those three are Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M.

My Prediction

Having seen all these teams play, here is what I think is a realistic prediction. The 3 games where Mississippi State should win easily I expect the Bulldogs to do so. I also expect them to win in Missouri. There hasn’t been anything done by the Tigers that leads me to believe they will score or stop the Bulldogs from scoring.

The only reason Arkansas and Auburn are as close to Mississippi State as they are is because there isn’t enough data yet to drop them further. As the season progresses, they’ll drop further in the rankings. I’m counting the toss ups as wins for the Bulldogs as well. That would give the Bulldogs  and Dak Prescott 6 additional wins.

For the three games where it would require an upset of some varying degree, I like the Bulldogs to pull off one of those wins. I’m not willing to commit to which one, but the person this pieces is about, Dak Prescott, is a special enough player for me to believe he is just enough of an advantage to get the Bulldogs one win in those games. This would be 7 more wins for Mississippi State and Dak Prescott, get an 8th win in the bowl game for a total of ten on the season. If it played out like that, Prescott would have 24 wins in his career and be tied for 2nd with John Bond.

Next: Auburn is Proof Positive Why Preseason Rankings Matter