Mississippi State vs Bowling Green: Highlights, final score, and analysis

The 2022 Mississippi State football team defeated the Bowling Green Falcons today, 45-14.

The Mississippi State Bulldogs were back home today at Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville, Mississippi. The Bulldogs seemed to bounce back and found an early rhythm in the first half. Mississippi State closed the game out as expected and dominated both sides of the ball.

Here are my early post-game thoughts:

Will Rogers gets back on track.

406 passing yards and 6 touchdowns today vs. the Bowling Green defense. Rogers tied his record for most passing touchdowns in a game. Will Rogers looks to carry the momentum over into an upcoming six-week SEC stretch of games.

There are holes in Mississippi State’s secondary.

Mississippi State football’s defense looked great the first few drives, but Bowling Green started to take shots deep when they found out they could. There were several opportunities for the Bulldog defense to come up with an interception, but they only came up with one turnover. There were several times that our defensive backs could have made the play if they had just turned around to look at the ball. SEC football teams will watch this film and take shots deep in the passing game.

The defensive front seven looks solid.

While the Mississippi State secondary looked iffy, the Bulldog defense front seven looked really tough. I know I must keep in mind the degree of the opponent Mississippi State was playing, but they seemed to stuff most rushing plays, even on the outside. The Bulldog front seven made up for the mistakes that the secondary gave up.

The drops have to stop if Mississippi State wants to win big games.

This point all comes back to the play where Will Rogers aired it out deep to Rara Thomas and Thomas dropped one of the most beautiful passes I’ve seen Rogers throw. If Mississippi State plans to win the big SEC games, they have to be able to execute the big play. This was a missed opportunity.