5 non-conference teams Mississippi State should play

With new SEC rules requiring Mississippi State to play at least one non-conference power five team per year, here are some teams the Bulldogs should schedule.

Scott Stricklin has already loaded up MSU’s schedule for the next eight years with home and home series vs. BYU (2016-17), Kansas State (2018-19), North Carolina State (2020-21) and Arizona (2022-23).

But what are some other schools Mississippi State should play? In a fantasy world, who would you pick?

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Games against teams like Louisiana Tech or Tulane or the like come and go – we see those slip on and off the schedule rather easily and are honestly boring. You either yawn over the win or are massively disappointed because we got upset. So for this I am only including power five teams which I’m sure 99% of you would do for your list. Here goes….

1. UCLA – we have never played UCLA…so why not? A chance to go to sunny California and have the Bruins in Starkville. They are a good but not great program usually middle of the road in the Pac 12 so it stands to reason it would be a good match-up.

2. Virginia Tech – if there is any school in the country that closely resembles Mississippi State it would be Virginia Tech….they even have maroon as a color. But we have never played the Hokies.

3. Michigan – State has only played one game ever vs. the winningest program in college football history, so let’s play some more. The first one worked out well….

4. Oklahoma – again, another team Mississippi State has never played. Is OU a little over our heads? I don’t know, but you’ve got to challenge yourself sometimes. To have never played a program like the Sooners – we should correct that.

5. Washington – we have played the Huskies once, in 1977. The Bulldogs won 27-18 but it was forfeited due to the Larry Gillard discount. A trip to Seattle is a place I would never dream to watch Mississippi State play (kind of like Boston this year) so it would be fun.