College Gameday hosts completely unaware of who Mississippi State's quarterback is

It's gameday in Starkville as Mississippi State football kicks-off the 2024 season tonight against Eastern Kentucky. A new era of Bulldog football will get underway with Jeff Lebby and a new cast of characters making their debuts for the Maroon and White.

This morning national media showed one final time that they're completely ignoring Mississippi State in 2024, as the hosts of what's supposed to be college football's premier pregame show made it clear they did no research on the Bulldogs.

College Gameday hosts didn't know Blake Shapen plays for Mississippi State

During College Gameday's Week 1 broadcast in College Station, the hosts played a game called "Where's He At". They were shown various college football players who transferred to new schools during the offseason and had to guess where they played now.

Bulldog quarterback Blake Shapen, who previously played for Baylor, came up, and the Gameday crew was entirely clueless of his whereabouts. Desmond Howard guessed that Shapen was on his third school (he's on his second). Nick Saban drew a blank. Pat McAfee didn't even make an attempt, and Kirk Herbstreit took a random guess that Shapen went to Texas Tech of all places.

No one had an inkling that Shapen was now in Starkville. For a show that's supposed to represent all of college football and provide analysis on the sport, not knowing a starting quarterback in the SEC of all conferences is a bad look.

The disrespect just continues for Mississippi State football

It doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who follows Mississippi State football that national analysts would be clueless about the Bulldogs. The MSU program has flown under the radar for years, but that has become especially true this offseason.

The little attention State got during the Dan Mullen and Mike Leach years has completely faded. Any discussion about the Bulldogs entering Jeff Lebby's first season has boiled down to talking heads and sports writers saying "we don't know anything about this team".

And sure, there are lots of questions about Bulldog football that even the most locked-in followers don't have answers to. But it doesn't take doing a deep dive into Mississippi State to know that Blake Shapen is their quarterback.

Both national and SEC media collectively decided they weren't going to spend any time evaluating this team over the offseason, and now with the season underway, their lack of knowledge is showing. Hopefully Blake Shapen and the Bulldogs make them foolish, starting today.