STARKVILLE
Through seven games, the 2015 Mississippi State football team has yet to acquire a slogan, motto or catchphrase, as far as I know.
After Saturday’s game, I submit the following, which is suitable to put on T-shirts, bumper stickers or those big sheets that hang from fraternity house windows on game day: “Always fall behind early: It gives you more time to catch up.”
Mississippi State defeated Louisiana Tech, 45-20, here before a homecoming crowd of 61,651 at Davis Wade Stadium in a game that started at 11 a.m.. It is likely to have been the largest gathering of sober people in the history of Mississippi, although the student section emptied early enough in the fourth quarter to get in the requisite amount of day drinkin’ before the real parties started.
The casual observer, aware only of the final score, would never have imagined that this one was anything but a walk-over.
It wasn’t. Far from it. Roughly 12 minutes into the game, Tech was up 14-0 and feeling pretty salty about it, too. Behind Tech quarterback Jeff Driskel, the visiting version of Bulldogs scored the first two times they touched the ball, both on TD passes from the University of Florida transfer.
State, meanwhile, seemed to have the urgency you typically associated with a group of retirees waiting for a table at a weekend brunch. The MSU defense alternated between missing tackles and blowing assignments while the offense managed just one first down on its first two possessions.
Where have we seen this before? Heck, almost every other week. In three previous games against Southern Miss, LSU and Texas A&M, State has trailed by a combined score of 34-10 after the first quarter. That they lost two of those games should not be a surprise.
Even so, the Bulldogs are now 5-2 overall and have won as many games after trailing as they have lost.
Like smoking, it’s a habit you may survive, but you don’t want to cultivate.
That the Bulldogs have succeeded as well as they have is, obviously, a tribute to a core group of veteran players, chief among them Dak Prescott, who is simply the most accomplished player in school history. He’s a fifth-year senior. Nothing much bothers him.
So, when State fell behind Saturday, head coach Dan Mullen turned his gaze to Prescott along the Bulldog sideline, expecting the see the same calm demeanor and quiet confidence on his face that has become known for.
“Usually, with him it’s ‘OK, we’re down 14-0. No big deal.'” Mullen said. “But when I looked over at him today, he looked kind of angry. He had that look in his eye like, “just give me the ball.”
Prescott, a Louisiana native with good friends on the opposite sideline, said the dominant emotion was more closely resembled frustration.
“We didn’t want to let them hang around and think they had a shot against us,” he said. “We had to take over immediately or the game was going to drag out.”
And you know how irritating that can be, especially on homecoming.
The Bulldogs did take over immediately, scoring a TD near the end of the first quarter, then outscoring Tech 17-3 in the decisive second quarter to take command. The Bulldog defense stepped up, too. After giving up 14 points in the first 12 minutes, they limited Tech to just a couple of field goals over the course of the final 48 minutes.
It will be the veterans’ names you seeing on the scoring summary. Prescott threw for three scores, ran for another and finished with 347 yards on a 30-of-43 passes. He is now only the third SEC player to pass for 50 touchdowns (51) and 30 rushing touchdowns (35). He hasn’t thrown in interception in last 274 passing attempts. He is eighth all-time in SEC history total touchdowns responsible for.
De’Runnya Wilson, MSU’s freakish wide receiver, caught two TD passes. Fellow junior Fred Brown had a touchdown grab.
But look a little closer and you will note that it was often some of the youngest Bulldogs who made key plays at key times. Their numbers don’t leap of the page: West Point true freshman running back Aeris Williams carried six times for 26 yards and the first MSU score, a two-run plow up the gut. Fellow true freshman Dontavian Lee had three runs for 21 yards and a catch. Not eye-popping stats, of course, yet both players made important plays early in the game, fighting for key yards at a time when MSU was desperately trying to get the game within its grasp.
Other young players played more notable roles. Redshirt freshman Brad Bryant, who has stepped into the starting safety spot after the loss of senior Kendrick Market, recovered a block punt that lead to MSU’s go-ahead score just before halftime and closed out the scoring with a weaving 73-yard interception return.
Then there was Malik Dear, a true freshman receiver from Jackson Murrah High School who is something of an oddity.
Dear had six catches for 70 yards and had a 99-yard kickoff return called back on a holding penalty.
“Nothing runs like a Dear” is not just a knockoff of a farm equipment manufacturer, it’s an attempt to describe this barrel-chested 5-foot-9, 220-pound kid who doesn’t seem to be in all that big of a hurry when the ball is in his hands.
“I’ve been watching him since he was in high school,” Mullen said. “I don’t get it, really. He never seems to be moving that fast. You seem him with the ball and it’s no big deal. Then when the play is over, you see he gone for 12, 15 yards. You’re thinking, ‘How does that go for 12 yards? How does that go for 15 yards?'”
Dear doesn’t know, either.
“Seems like I’m going pretty fast to me,” he said with a shrug.
The contributions of so many young players is both a testament to recruiting and a work ethic that Mullen says has become the team’s ethos.
“They work hard, like to work, “Mullen said. “So when their number is called, they’re ready to make plays.”
On any other Saturday, kids like Williams, Lee, Bryant and Dear would probably be watching Saturday morning cartoons.
But on this Saturday morning, injuries and circumstances provided opportunities to get their careers off to a fast start.
And that’s something that cannot be said of the Bulldogs in general this year, who don’t often seem to be in much of a hurry to get going.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is ssmith@cdispatchcom
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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