The Legacy of 2015 will be Defined in November
Mississippi State currently sits at the two-thirds mark of the 2015 season with a 6-2 record. Former Mississippi State head coach Jackie Sherrill was fond of saying that to have a really good season, you needed to win each month.
The Bulldogs won September with a 3-1 mark and have now won October with a 3-1 game. Can the Bulldogs go at least 3-1 in November and have a great season? Let’s take a quick look forward.
A well deserved open date in on tap for this weekend, leading up to a road matchup with Missouri the following Thursday night. Missouri has struggled this year, losing to Vanderbilt last week, so this is most definitely a winnable road game for the Bulldogs. Hopefully Dak Prescott can maintain the offensive momentum generated against Kentucky.
Nine days later, State hosts Alabama. This, of course, is always a difficult game to State to win, but Bama plays LSU the week before, which perhaps helps the Bulldogs somewhat. And the Bulldogs do generally play extremely well at home, so anything can happen here.
A road game in Fayetteville follows the Bama game. The Bulldogs have only won one time in the state of Arkansas, and that occurred two years ago in Little Rock. This year’s game is in Fayetteville and it’s guaranteed to be a tough out. Still, a win in this game sets the Bulldogs up nicely for a strong finish.
And finally, it’s the Egg Bowl battle with Ole Miss in Starkville to conclude the season, where the home team has won 19 of the last 24 games in the series. More specifically, the Bulldogs have won 10 of the last 12 Egg Bowls played in Davis Wade Stadium. Obviously a win here for the Bulldogs makes the season much sweeter.
If State were to run the table with a 10-2 record they could be looking at even better things than a really nice bowl game. The possibility still exists for the Bulldogs to win the SEC and it’s not that far-fetched:
- LSU loses on the road at Alabama
- LSU loses on the road at Ole Miss
- Ole Miss finishes at least tied with A&M in the division
That’s all that has to happen…and MSU winning out. Ole Miss needs to finish above A&M in the event of a LSU/Bama/MSU three-way tie which would be broken by each team’s record vs. the top remaining divisional team. If Ole Miss were to win out up until the Egg Bowl, then the Battle for the Golden Egg would also be the battle for the SEC West as MSU would win a four-way tie at 6-2 as well.
6-6 or 10-2 or something in between the two? November holds the answer to the kind of bowl game Mississippi State will be playing in this year, or perhaps even more.