STARKVILLE — Nick Fitzgerald casually made his way from midfield to his team, congregating in the end zone for the playing of the alma mater. On the way he ran into quarterbacks coach Andrew Breiner, where he was stopped for a hug and some words accompanied with a smile.

Together they turned to the swaying masses to the north and joined the rhythm. Over their heads beamed the results of their work: 56 points and a win. This week, no context was needed.

No. 16 Mississippi State was impressive enough in its win over Kansas State last week, but it came with the caveat of Fitzgerald’s passing performance: 40.7 completion percentage, 5.7 yards per attempt and an interception. No such qualifiers were needed Saturday after Fitzgerald completed two-thirds of his passes, throwing for 243 yards and two touchdowns in the 56-10 win over Louisiana-Lafayette.

“Hopefully people will kind of relax on the whole, ‘He can’t pass,’ thing, we’ll see how that goes,” Fitzgerald said through his usual dry humor.

Before Fitzgerald could prove that point to a skeptical fan base, he had to put the Ragin’ Cajuns (1-1) on the ropes with his legs: the ones carrying him to the top of MSU’s record books.

The 81 rushing yards he amassed by halftime were all he needed to surpass Michael Davis (1991-94) for fourth in school history for career rushing yards; his four touchdowns, including when he ran for four against Arkansas in 2016, make him just the third such Southeastern Conference player in the last 20 years with multiple such games.

His 2,752 career yards leave him just 68 yards shy of third in school history.

The 107 yards Saturday that added to it all can be considered a happy accident.

“I’d say it was flow,” MSU head coach Joe Moorhead said. “The design of the run-pass option is who gets the ball is based on the defender we’re reading. If they had done something else it could have been handed off, but in these instances, the read told him to keep it.”

UL Lafayette paid for those openings: Fitzgerald scored twice in the first quarter to build an early lead then again in the final five minutes of the half, sending the game on the brink of an early conclusion.

Then Fitzgerald got to display his arm.

Those opportunities came early — Fitzgerald completed four passes of at least 20 yards in the game’s first 20 minutes — but the statement came in the final two minutes of the half. A 30-point halftime advantage was there for the Bulldogs’ (3-0) taking if they could score a touchdown; with 18 seconds left to spare, Fitzgerald lofted one 39 yards to Stephen Guidry down the left side, who ran under a perfectly-placed ball as he crossed the goal line.

An offense looking for more found what it needed in changing nothing.

“To be honest, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of variation from what we normally do,” Moorhead said. “I was confident Nick knocking the rust off in his first start in our system, he was going to improve in Game Two. Nick took all the corrections from the week, worked in practice to make those and he got better.”

Fitzgerald added the game plan from the Kansas State game to this one was very similar, with one minor difference being prioritizing corner routes: Fitzgerald used one for his longest completion of the night, 44 yards to Deddrick Thomas. Beyond that, the only change was settling into a sustainable routine.

“Before the game last week, on Thursday, I wasn’t really on my throws, I didn’t have a great day passing the ball,” Fitzgerald said. “That kind of trickled over into Friday and trickled over into Saturday.

“All week, I was hitting passes, left and right, putting the ball wherever it needed to go. That just built on itself all the way through the week, had a great Thursday, great Friday and I felt comfortable back there.”

This, he believes, is the Fitzgerald of the weeks to come. A version of himself that completes 66 percent of his passes and still averages 11.5 yards per attempt, 17.3 per completion. A version that throws two touchdowns without being intercepted.

While the referendum on his future was happening around him, Fitzgerald rid himself of the conversation by refusing to acknowledge it.

“I’ve made those throws in practice, but it was nice to go out in a game situation and do it for everyone to see,” he said.

Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson