HOOVER, Ala. — After finishing sixth last season, the Mississippi State football team was picked to finish last in the Southeastern Conference Western Division this season by media members, the league announced Thursday.
It is the second year in a row coach Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs have been picked to finish last. In 2014, MSU was picked fifth but finished second after rising to national No. 1 for five-straight weeks.
Alabama was picked to win the West (246 votes) and the conference (223 points). LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Arkansas, and Auburn were picks 2-6. LSU received 59 votes to win the league.
In the Eastern Division, Tennessee was predicted to finish first. The Volunteers received 225 first place votes in the East and 29 points for the league championship.
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Missouri, and South Carolina were 2-7 in the East.
Five times since 1992, and three times in the last 20 years, the predicted champion has gone on to win the SEC Championship.
The preseason All-SEC team will be announced today.
n In other news, MSU’s Brandon Holloway was named a candidate for the 2016 Doak Walker Award, the PwC SMU Athletic Forum announced.
Alabama sophomores Bo Scarbrough and Damien Harris also were recognized.
Holloway, Scarbrough, and Harris are among 76 running backs from around the country named to the preseason watch list recognizing the nation’s top runner. Alabama’s Derrick Henry brought home the award a season ago, while the Crimson Tide’s Trent Richardson won the award in 2011.
As a junior, Holloway rushed for 413 yards on 92 carries, but he failed to score a touchdown. The Tampa, Florida, native is expected to compete with Ashton Shumpert, Aeris Williams, Dontavian Lee, Nick Gibson, Kelly Named to Davey On Wednesday, Holloway was named to the Wuerffel Trophy watch list and was named an Allstate AFCA Good Works Team nominee.
A backup to Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry in 2015, Harris rushed 46 times for 157 yards and a score and caught four passes for 13 yards. He ranked second on the team with nine kickoff returns for 174 yards, including a long of 30.
Returning for his sophomore season after rushing for 104 yards on 18 carries as a freshman in 2015, Scarbrough will look to play a major role in the Crimson Tide rushing attack. One of the top running back recruits in the country coming out of high school, he sat out the first four games of the 2015 season rehabbing from a knee injury.
The Doak Walker Award has been presented annually since 1990 by the SMU Athletic Forum to recognize the top running back in college football. The award is named in honor of former college and NFL Hall of Famer Doak Walker. The 2016 winner will be announced in December at the ESPN Home Depot College Football Awards Show.
n Southern Mississippi’s Mullens named to Davey O’Brien Award watch list: At Fort Worth, Texas, Southern Mississippi senior quarterback Nick Mullens was named Thursday to the Davey O’Brien Award watch list.
The award is presented to the nation’s top quarterback.
On Wednesday, Mullens earned recognition for the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team and the Wuerffel Trophy Watch List, each commemorating athletes for their off-the-field roles in the community. He also joined Ito Smith on the Maxwell Award watch list July 5.
The Hoover, Alabama, native is the defending Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year. Mullens has tremendously improved each season, including a 38-touchdown campaign in 2015 that marked 13 more scoring passes than he had in the previous two seasons combined. His 4,476 yards through the air nearly doubled what he had in 2014 (2,470).
In his final three outings of Southern Miss’ six-game winning streak at the end of the year, Mullens threw for 1,074 yards and 10 touchdowns and two interceptions. The Golden Eagles averaged 59.7 points in that trio, winning two of those games on the road.
Mullens had 10 300-yard passing games as a junior, including a career-high 447 yards passing at Nebraska.
This will be the 10th year fans will be invited to participate in the voting process on VoteOBrien.org. Results from the Davey O’Brien Fan Vote will be combined with the ballots from the Selection Committee. Fan voting, which accounts for 5 percent of the total balloting, begins Sept. 6.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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