Mississippi State wide receiver Brenen Thompson took the loss to Georgia hard.
“I’m a senior, so I don’t have a lot of these left,” he said when asked about taking a moment for himself after the loss. Thompson got emotional reflecting on the fact that he would only play two more games in his college career. “It’s tough.”
Despite the harsh downturn in results, Thompson is having the best year individually of his career. He leads the Bulldogs this season with 868 receiving yards and six touchdowns. His yardage total ranks second in the SEC, just behind Tennessee’s Chris Brazzell II, and has earned him a spot on the Biletnikoff Watch List.
The senior was named as the team’s nominee for the 2025 Conerly Trophy on Tuesday, the only receiver among the nominees across the state. The award is given annually to the top college football player in the state of Mississippi, and hasn’t gone to a Bulldog since Kylin Hill in 2019.
In three years of action before coming to Starkville, Thompson tallied just 503 total receiving yards in stints at Texas and Oklahoma. He has a chance to double that total in just one season with the Bulldogs if he has a big game in the Egg Bowl, or as he and his teammates are hoping, if they can beat their hated rivals and book their place in a bowl game in December.
Thompson didn’t just join the Bulldogs because it was a chance to play more. He was given an early opportunity to lead and has been an outspoken member of the offense, thanks in part to his knowledge of Lebby’s offense. As a member of the team’s leadership council, he has been a regular voice for the team in front of the media this season and represented the team at SEC Media Days in Atlanta last July.
As a team leader, Thompson has worn his frustration as well as his competitiveness in recent games. The lofty statistics haven’t meant as much to him as the wins, which have dried up since the start of conference play.
Thompson isn’t the only MSU receiver who has shown to be more than his past production in Starkville. Georgia transfer Anthony Evans has helped form a remarkable strike team out wide for Lebby’s offense, with the pair providing 100 yards each in three games this season. They’re the only receiving duo in program history to have multiple 100-yard games together in the same season, and have demonstrated the potential of Lebby’s offense through the air with the right playmakers out wide.
The first of such games was the last-minute win over Arizona State, where Thompson’s heroics on a game-winning touchdown sparked on-field celebrations with fans and hope for where the new campaign could go.
However, after six losses in seven SEC games, the chances are running out for MSU to get postseason eligibility, and only one game against Ole Miss remains.
“I feel like we’ve battled this entire year, up and down… so it’s crucial for the leaders in the locker room to really rally this team together,” Thompson said after the Georgia game. “There’s still so much to fight for.”
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