STARKVILLE — The biggest opportunity of the season has arrived for Mississippi State’s football team.
After three weeks of dominating non-conference opponents, MSU will open Southeastern Conference play at 6 p.m. Saturday at No. 8 LSU, a team that has won the past 14 meetings in the series dating back to 1999.
“We are going to have to play at a very, very high level to find a way to win,” said MSU coach Dan Mullen, who is 0-5 against LSU in his tenure in Starkville. “They are a top-10 team, and playing on the road on a Saturday night is a big challenge for us.”
MSU (3-0) enters its SEC opener having outscored Southern Mississippi, Alabama-Birmingham, and South Alabama 131-37. LSU will be the first of three consecutive top-10 opponents for MSU.
Mullen said the first three games gave the Bulldogs a chance to prepare for the unmatched grind of league competition.
“We are still trying to find out who we are as a team through three weeks,” Mullen said. “I think we are going to settle down a little bit as we get in to conference play. We will experiment on some things or show some different looks to set other things up, but our goal was to win the first three games, so it is not like we were holding everything back. We still haven’t shown all of our offense. This is a very different team, so defensively we will be pretty different this week. The first couple of teams we played were spread-out, tempo teams, but this is going to be a ground-and-pound team, so it will be a different defensive scheme.”
LSU (3-0) is coming off blowouts against Sam Houston State and Louisiana-Monroe after it opened the season with a 28-24 comeback victory against Wisconsin.
In that game, the season opener for both teams, the Badgers led the Tigers 24-7 in the third quarter. While LSU has posted consecutive shutouts since the first game, the Tigers allowed 268 rushing yards to the Badgers. MSU is averaging 260 rushing yards per game, which is fifth in the conference.
Junior quarterback Dak Prescott, a native of Haughton, Louisiana, who signed with MSU after fielding a late scholarship offer from LSU in 2011, has accounted for a SEC-leading 12 touchdowns (nine passing, two rushing, one receiving).
“It’s a talented Mississippi State team,” LSU coach Les Miles said in his weekly press conference. “They’re 3-0. Dan Mullen has done a great job. Should easily be a ranked team; I can’t imagine they’re not. They have all of the abilities, offense, defense, and special teams you would see in a ranked team.”
LSU will be MSU’s first challenge in the SEC West gauntlet. Five of the division’s seven teams are ranked in the top 10, while MSU and Arkansas are also receiving votes.
MSU’s schedule should give Mullen several chances for a program-changing win. The first one won’t be easy. LSU has won 32 of its last 33 home games, and MSU hasn’t won in Tiger Stadium since 1991.
None of that history matters to Mullen.
“All that matters is this week,” Mullen said. “Every game that has been played there has no impact on this game. Every game we have played there has no impact on this game. Every game we will play against them in the future has no impact on this game. It is all about this week and our focus on this one game. That is what we talk to our guys about. With an experienced team it is pretty simple for them to understand this is all about this one game on Saturday and not anything else.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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