After falling to the LSU Tigers on Saturday, the Mississippi State football team is set to meet up with the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Zach Arnett and the Mississippi State football team are now 2-1 on the season and the Mississippi State Bulldogs are now hitting the road for the first time this year. MSU is set to face off against the South Carolina Gamecocks this Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina.
What’s the history like between the Bulldogs and Gamecocks? The two programs are relatively similar in several ways, but how often have they faced off? How have the Bulldogs fared in Columbia in years past?
Let’s take a trip down memory lane and go over some Mississippi State football history.
Mississippi State football history: Series history between MSU Bulldogs and South Carolina Gamecocks
The first time these two teams met was all the way back in 1992 when the Gamecocks handed the Bulldogs a solid 21-6 defeat. Mississippi State then turned around and beat South Carolina in Starkville during that second meeting. State won again in 1994, lost in 1995, and then hit a four-game hot streak and beat USC in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999.
Mississippi State had some solid statement wins in that stretch, including a remarkable 38-0 shutout in Columbia back in 1998.
How did South Carolina respond?
Oh, well, very simply. The Gamecocks won the next seven matchups, beating MSU silly on seven different occasions from 2000 to 2013.
That said, Mississippi State football was able to win the most recent meeting between the two teams and the Bulldogs beat South Carolina 27-14 when Will Muschamp led the Gamecocks into Davis Wade Stadium back in 2016. The win was one of the first impressive performances from former MSU quarterback Nick Fitzgerald who ran for 195 yards against the Gamecocks.
Now the Bulldogs get to try and build a winning streak with this contest. Should State find a way to win this matchup on the road, the Bulldogs will be halfway to bowl eligibility and can effortlessly put last week’s mishap behind them.
But, should Zach Arnett and the Bulldogs fall short, a ton of questions will be raised about where this program is going.