STARKVILLE — To the extent a team can answer nearly every pressing offseason question against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent, Mississippi State did just that Saturday in a 48-7 romp over FCS No. 15 Southeastern Louisiana.

Senior quarterback Will Rogers, after a slow start, found his rhythm in new offensive coordinator Kevin Barbay’s offense. Running back Jo’Quavious “Woody” Marks rushed for a career-high 127 yards and two touchdowns while remaining a key element of the passing game. The defense, led by sixth-year linebacker Nathaniel “Bookie” Watson, pitched a shutout outside of one long drive in the second quarter.

It all added up to a winning debut for Zach Arnett in his first game as the Bulldogs’ full-time head coach.

“There’s a reason season tickets are sold out here,” Arnett said. “We’ve got a lot of really good players. A lot of guys could have gone anywhere they wanted to in the transfer portal when the season ended, but they bleed maroon and white and they want to be right here. They like playing in front of this crowd, so I’m glad they got to go out there and get celebrated and execute and start the season off with a victory.”

MSU (1-0) led by just a field goal after a quarter, but opened the second period with an explosive play on defense. Watson stripped Lions receiver Jacob Logan after a short catch-and-run and jumped on the loose ball himself, setting the Bulldogs up inside the SELA 40.

Marks turned a bubble screen into a 35-yard gain two plays later before plunging it in from the 1 on the next snap for MSU’s first touchdown of the season.

“I’m really glad (Watson) decided to come back for another year,” Arnett said. “He’s a captain for a reason. He and (Rogers) were voted captains, and that’s not just by happenstance. Those guys, they command the respect of every room they walk into in our program. They command the locker room. Bookie’s got a lot more to do with our defensive success than anything I or our defensive coordinator do.”

The Lions’ lone scoring drive of the day covered 79 yards in 16 plays and took more than eight minutes off the clock as SELA (0-1) converted three third downs and a fourth down. But the Bulldogs bounced right back thanks in large part to freshman receiver Creed Whittemore, a high school quarterback.

Whittemore caught four passes for 59 yards on the ensuing drive, capped by a 33-yard touchdown on which he was in his own zip code along the left sideline. He would add a 53-yard touchdown on an end-around run in the fourth quarter to punctuate an explosive collegiate debut.

“Coach Barbay runs a great offense,” Whittemore said. “I’m excited for what he’s got in store. We just showed a glimpse of what we have (today). We’ve got so many more weapons and guys who could make plays. Today it was me who happened to get the ball, but we have a bunch of guys who can do exactly what I did.”

Freshman kicker Kyle Ferrie, who opened the scoring with a 46-yard field goal, nailed a 49-yarder as the first half expired to give MSU a 20-7 lead at the break. Ferrie was short on his initial attempt, when the Lions called a timeout to ice him, but the re-try sailed straight through the uprights.

The Bulldogs turned the ball over on downs on their first possession of the second half but remained red-hot after that. Backup quarterback Mike Wright, a transfer from Vanderbilt, broke loose for a 53-yard run late in the third quarter to set up a 5-yard scoring pass from Rogers to Jaden Walley in the left flat.

“After that first drive of the third quarter, Coach Barbay put a huge emphasis on running the ball,” Rogers said. “As the game goes on, we want to wear people down and we want to run the ball. We’ll see how that goes, but ultimately, we have to keep getting better.”

MSU’s special teams helped turn the game into a blowout on the first play of the fourth quarter when sophomore linebacker John Lewis blocked a punt and redshirt freshman Avery Sledge plucked it out of the air and took it in for a touchdown. The offense added two more scores from there, with both Marks and Whittemore finding the end zone for the second time.

Meanwhile, the defense held SELA to under 100 rushing yards and just 208 total yards of offense. Watson led the charge with eight tackles and 1.5 sacks, and fellow linebacker Jett Johnson, who led the Southeastern Conference in tackles last year, had six stops including a sack of his own.

“Bookie’s a phenomenal player. I’ll be able to tell my kids I played with him when he’s a 10-year veteran in the NFL,” Johnson said. “It’s an honor to play beside him. He’s a great teammate and a great friend to me.”

Rogers completed 20 of 29 passes for 227 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, and he looked more comfortable as the game progressed. But the big story was the running game — rarely a factor in Mike Leach’s “Air Raid” system. If not for a pair of kneel downs to end the game, the Bulldogs would have rushed for 300 yards on the day.

MSU will host Arizona at 6:30 Saturday night, a year after defeating the Wildcats 39-17 in Tucson.

“Obviously there are things we have to clean up and do better in terms of our execution on defense,” Arnett said. “But credit to (defensive coordinator Matt) Brock and his staff; they did a good job coming in and not panicking at halftime. They made adjustments and had a really nice second half.”