Where Should Mississippi State Football Be Ranked Heading Into 2018 Season?

How high in preseason rankings should the Mississippi State football team be ranked heading into next season?

For some reason, various rankings differ greatly in how high they want to place the Mississippi State football team on their respective lists. The Bulldogs are all over the place in the rankings. Some have the Bulldogs sitting all the way down at 24. Others have Mississippi State ranked as high as 11.

There’s little agreement on where MSU should be ranked across the board.

Earlier today, the Mississippi State football twitter account tweeted out where various media outlets have the Bulldogs ranked. CBS Sports has MSU at number 11, ESPN’s Mark Schlabach has the Bulldogs at 16, Athlon Sports puts Mississippi State at 17, USA Today gives State the 21st spot, and then Sporting News puts MSU at 24.

The average ranking of those five lists for Mississippi State is 17.8.

Now, none of these are technically official rankings by any means. These are all projections and predictions, to my knowledge. But, they do give an accurate showing of how many outside of the SEC, and Mississippi specifically, view Mississippi State.

Mississippi State receives varying levels of respect.

Depending on who you are and how familiar you are with Mississippi State football, your perspective of the level of success MSU might have in 2018 is going to vary. Just as it would with any team really. But, for some reason, Mississippi State football teams seem to get highly varying degrees of attention and respect from outside sources.

Late last week, Pro Football Focus College tweeted out how senior defensive end Montez Sweat compared to other defensive linemen. Their tweet stated that Sweat “quietly” had a good season last year.

Which, in some ways, is true. Nationally, not much was expected of Montez Sweat heading into the 2017 season. However, Sweat was arguably the best defensive lineman in the Southeastern Conference last season and was on the All-SEC first team. And, as Ian Reed pointed out on twitter, the only real reason why Sweat had a “quietly” productive season was because of the way many view Mississippi State.

This is something that the Bulldogs have dealt with for a while. It’s something that isn’t necessarily going away any time soon. And, right now, it could be impacting and skewing how highly Mississippi State gets ranked in preseason/offseason coverage and articles.

It’ll almost certainly be present when the SEC Media Days roll around this summer.

So, ignoring all of that, where would you rank the Mississippi State football team right now?

Given what MSU accomplished a season ago, what the Bulldogs return this season, and Moorhead’s record of success, I’d place the Mississippi State football team fairly high up there. Granted, I am admittedly biased and exposed to MSU coverage a bit, so my perspective will differ from that of many other writers.

As of right now, the Mississippi State football team is probably deserving of being a top 15 team in any sort of preseason polls. ESPN’s Football Power Index sets Mississippi State at 16, just barely behind the University of Southern California at 15.

But, the FPI isn’t a preseason poll. Rather, it measures of a variety of factors to determine how good a team is. On top of that, it projects success based off of simulations. And, ultimately it is a fairly good way to predict a team’s success.

Next: Mississippi State Has A Team Built To Succeed In 2018

With Joe Moorhead at the helm, Nick Fitzgerald running things, two dynamic running backs, four returning offensive line starters, two first team All-SEC defensive linemen, and an experienced coaching staff, the Bulldogs should be set for a good amount of success in 2018.