COLUMBIA, Mo. — Dak Prescott felt something was about to happen with the Mississippi State football team’s offense.
After leaving Texas A&M on Oct. 3 with a 13-point loss, the MSU senior quarterback saw some good things from his offense, but he also saw areas that needed improvement. MSU had 406 yards, but it committed two turnovers that led to 13 points for Texas A&M.
“We just stepped on our own feet,” Prescott said. “We knew if we could just get together and stop making self mistakes and just get some tempo going, we would be pretty good.”
Immediately following that game, MSU began to work on setting a better tempo for the game against Troy the following week. The offense clicked in the 28-point victory and has been rolling ever since.
No. 24 MSU built on that momentum Thursday night with a 31-13 victory against Missouri in a Southeastern Conference game at Memorial Stadium.
In the last four games — wins against Troy, Louisiana Tech, Kentucky, and Missouri — MSU has 1,792 yards of and has scored 163 points.
Even in the rain Thursday, the Bulldogs (7-2, 3-2 SEC) had 430 yards against the Tigers (4-5, 1-5), who entered the game allowing 282.1 yards and 12.5 points per game. MSU’s 31 points is the most allowed by Missouri this season.
“We’re getting in that rhythm, we’re going fast, and we’re just doing the things we need to execute,” MSU junior wide receiver Fred Ross said.
Ross continued to be Prescott’s favorite target, tying a career high with 11 catches for a career-best 115 yards and one touchdown. Prescott was 27 of 40 for 303 yards (his sixth career 300-yard game) and four touchdowns. He became the sixth player in SEC history to account for 100-plus touchdowns in his career (101). With 350 total yards, the Haughton, Louisiana, native became the 10th player in SEC history to record 10,000 career yards of total offense (10,285).
But junior wide receiver De’Runnya Wilson stole the show, making four catches for 102 yards and two touchdowns. Prescott didn’t look Wilson’s way in the first quarter, but he found his big wide receiver for a 28-yard touchdown with 6 minutes, 3 seconds remaining in the second quarter to increase MSU’s lead to 14-6.
On third-and-11 early in the third quarter, Prescott found Wilson for a 63-yard pass that moved MSU to the Missouri 15-yard line. Four plays later, Prescott found Wilson for a 5-yard touchdown that extended MSU’s lead to 21-13 with 12:20 left in the third quarter.
“Those plays were huge,” Wilson said. “That’s something we worked on in practice. In the second half, we tried to come out and execute better than we did in the first half.”
The two touchdowns give Prescott and Wilson 17, which tied Tyler Russell and Chad Bumphis for most in school history by a quarterback to a wide receiver.
Prescott has been taking what the defense gives him. Early on, Wilson was being double-teamed and bracketed. After Ross started quickly, the Tigers switched their attention to him, which left Wilson open.
Prescott likes how his two threats open up the offense.
“When we’re attacking them outside with Bear (Wilson) and then Fred’s eating them up inside, they really don’t know what to do or how to stop that,” Prescott said.
After MSU forced a three-and-out on Missouri’s first drive, Prescott hit Ross for a 36-yard touchdown to cap a four-play, 62-yard drive.
Prescott found Fred Brown for an 8-yard touchdown late in the third quarter to end the scoring. Westin Graves made a 36-yard field goal earlier in the quarter.
In addition to Prescott’s 303 passing yards, MSU rushed for 127 yards. MSU coach Dan Mullen said the most balance was the best it has been this season. Redshirt freshman and West Point standout Aeris Williams led MSU running backs with 46 yards on six carries. Junior Brandon Holloway rushed for 24 yards on six carries, and junior Ashton Shumpert, seeing action at running back for the first time in two games, rushed for 15 yards on eight carries.
“I really feel every single week since the Texas A&M game we’ve improved as a team,” Mullen said. “There’s no panic, there’s issues, everybody just get to practice, work harder, and we’ll improve from one week to the next as a football team.”
MSU will play host to Alabama on Saturday, Nov. 14, at Davis Wade Stadium.
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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