STARKVILLE — Dan Mullen anticipated a party.
After beating No. 7 Texas A&M, who was ranked No. 4 in the first College Football Playoff poll, 35-28 Saturday afternoon at Davis Wade Stadium, Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen said there was going to be a “big ol’ celebration at the Mullen household.”
The win got the Bulldogs to 4-5 overall and 2-3 in the Southeastern Conference. It also shook up the playoff picture, seemingly knocking the Aggies out of the picture. But this season, wins have not come easy for the Bulldogs. A 21-20 loss to South Alabama, in which Westin Graves missed a field goal with seconds remaining, in the opener was the beginning. MSU also lost 28-21 to BYU in double overtime on the road on Oct. 14 and 40-38 to Kentucky on a field goal as time expired on Oct. 22.
With young players, Mullen has wanted his team to celebrate every win they get. That was not a problem Saturday.
“You go, for the third time of the season, into a locker room of kids who tried to give you everything that they have and have it taken away on the final play of the game, you are almost out of things to say,” Mullen said. “For them to continue to work, believe and fight, I couldn’t be prouder of our players.”
MSU plays at No. 1 Alabama (9-0, 6-0 SEC) 11 a.m. Saturday (ESPN) at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. MSU then plays host to Arkansas Nov. 19 and play at in-state rival Ole Miss Nov. 26 in the Battle for the Golden Egg. MSU needs two wins to reach a bowl game for a school-record seventh straight season.
Senior wide receiver Fred Ross, who had six catches for 98 yards, has been a part of some good teams at MSU, including the 2014 team that started 9-0, were ranked No. 1 for five straight weeks and appeared in the Orange Bowl. He was a part of the 2015 team that finished 9-4 with a 51-28 win over North Carolina State at Belk Bowl.
As Ross entered the locker room after Saturday’s win, he walked into a wild party.
“It was crazy,” Ross said. “Guys were dumping Gatorade everywhere. It was a wild scene. Music blasting. We just tired to enjoy the win after the game.”
Even though the locker room was wild, Mullen said it was equally wild last week. MSU beat Samford 56-41 on Homecoming. The win snapped a three-game losing streak. Mullen had stressed to his team earlier that they needed to celebrate any win they got.
“After last week’s game it was one of the wildest locker room scenes,” Mullen said. “I don’t quite know if it was the Florida one. That was pretty wild because it was the first time that everybody in the program actually really believed.”
MSU beat No. 22 Florida 10-7 in 2010. Mullen served as the offensive coordinator from 2005-08 at Florida under Urban Meyer. He helped the Gators win two national championships before taking over the Bulldog program in 2009.
Mullen said his young team has realized that it’s hard to win football games and have accepted the fact that anytime something positive happens, they should celebrate it.
“To give yourself that opportunity you better play as hard as you can, you’ve got to prepare the right way, you’ve got to be all in every single snap of that game for four quarters, you’ve got to be all in every second of your preparation during the week and you’ve got to strain with unbelievable effort the entire game. If you do that, you really need to enjoy the rewards and that feeling of winning the game,” Mullen said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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