{"id":66291,"date":"2024-10-18T11:00:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T15:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=66291"},"modified":"2024-10-17T17:30:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T21:30:52","slug":"bulldogs-to-upset-the-aggies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/10\/18\/bulldogs-to-upset-the-aggies\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulldogs to Upset the Aggies?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans and pundits alike agree that Mississippi State was impressive in its 41-31 loss to Georgia<\/a> last week. Rarely will you see those words to describe a team\u2019s losing performance. But things are dire in Starkville. State was in such a tailspin following a four-game losing streak, that any improvement is being met with praise. \u00a0The two games in which they held their own were in the hostile environments of Texas and Georgia. They now enter a three-game home stint, where State often has an advantage, especially where Texas A&M is concerned. Could the Bulldogs upset the Aggies in the first of those three games? It has happened before.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the Aggies were ranked No. 4 in the country and the Bulldogs had a 3-5 record going into the contest. Yet, A&M ended up losing 35-28, a game their fans still remember coming into Starkville this year.<\/p>\n

In last week’s Georgia game, the Dawgs from Mississippi started out in a way that many thought was going to be a blowout. They trailed at halftime 27-10. But thanks to a second-half rally by the offense, MSU kept it within 10 points losing the game 41-31. State actually scored 21 points to UGA\u2019s 14 in the second half. This has Starkville-Dawg fans optimistic about the remainder of the season, and beyond.<\/p>\n

Out of the Mouths of Players<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The comeback by the Bulldogs’ offense was led by true freshman quarterback Michael Van Buren<\/a>. It was impressive enough to earn him the SEC Freshman of the Week honor. In his Monday press conference, Bulldogs\u2019 head coach Jeff Lebby was understandably proud of his young prot\u00e9g\u00e9, But, going forward, he believes they can\u2019t wait until the second half to start. \u00a0\u201cThe message is we have to play better, we’ve got to play cleaner, we’ve got to start faster to give ourselves a chance,” Lebby said. “Nobody understands that right now more than Mike does.\u201d<\/p>\n

A head coach usually makes the pitch to the press most of the time. But, following Saturday\u2019s game in Athens, some of State\u2019s players weren\u2019t down from the loss, but vocalizing what they could use out of it. \u201cI would say the biggest thing is, yeah, losing sucks, but at the end of the day it\u2019s like you never lose a game,\u201d defensive lineman Sulaiman Kpaka<\/a> said. \u201cYeah, the score says one thing, but when you go back and watch the film, you\u2019re always like, \u2018Alright, the game came down to X amount of plays.\u2019 We know if we just clean these things up going forward, we won\u2019t make those mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tight end Seydou Traore<\/a> converted a couple of fourth downs against UGA on Saturday. “Mike is a great player,” Traore said. “If we come out like that in the beginning of the game it’s a different story.”<\/p>\n

Linebacker Branden Jennings<\/a> also had a similar take on things. \u201cI feel like we’re going to keep fighting and use this to our advantage,” Jennings said.<\/p>\n

The defense will definitely need to step up to improve their game. UGA tallied 459 yards in passing, which leads one to believe the pass rush will need to be more present against the Aggies.<\/p>\n

Aggies Bye-Week Hangover?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Texas A&M is coming off a bye week following an incredibly impressive win against SEC opponent Missouri. The Tigers were ranked at No. 9 at the time, A&M at No. 19. They all but humiliated Mizzou 41-10, mounting 512 yards of total offense. For the Bulldogs’ sake, perhaps the momentum of such a victory is tempered with the bye week.<\/p>\n

The Aggies started out their season defeated by Notre Dame 23-13, and quickly made up for that by going undefeated. Three of those victories were against Florida (in the Swamp), Arkansas, and the aforementioned Missouri. They are currently 5-1, 3-0 in the SEC, which places them at No. 1 in the conference. They may be looking past the Dawgs to their next game with No. 8 LSU in College Station, TX, and then to South Carolina, another road game. For the record, their game in Starkville is only their second road game since going to Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

Aggie head coach Mike Elko is quite complimentary of State\u2019s young Van Buren as he answered in a weekly press teleconference. \u201cI think he can throw the deep ball really, really well, I think you saw that last week,\u201d Elko said. \u201cI thought in the second half (against Georgia), he got into a really comfortable rhythm back there and made some big-time throws against a really good defense. And so he’s an extremely talented quarterback. I think he’s getting more and more comfortable and certainly being at home, making his first home start this week, I’m sure he’s really excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back Home Again<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Dawgs will surely welcome the sound of cowbells again after being on the road in such hostile neighborhoods. Also on the table is rectifying the last two home games with the losses to Toledo and Florida. Can the Bulldogs upset the Aggies, who come into Starkville as they did in 2016? Despite being a 15-point favorite with the oddsmakers, the Aggie fans aren\u2019t taking their success for granted, at least according to their fan sites.<\/p>\n

Adding to the Bulldogs’ excitement will be welcoming back the 2014 team that went 10-2 in the regular season, and featured none other than Dak Prescott on head coach Dan Mullen’s winning team. \u00a0In his Monday presser, Lebby talked about what it will be like to be home. \u201cThere’s nothing better,\u201d Lebby said. \u201cOur atmosphere and our energy is still unlike anywhere in America. So, for us, that will be a huge advantage for us on Saturday afternoon. Our guys want that, man, they need that, they can’t wait to be back here at home. There’s a bunch of excitement inside our building just because of the fact that we’re able to be at home and be in Davis Wade Stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game kicks off at 3:15 pm CT and can be seen on the SEC Network.<\/p>\n

\"Bulldogs
Photo courtesy: Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fans and pundits alike agree that Mississippi State was impressive in its 41-31 loss to Georgia last week. Rarely will you see those words to describe a team\u2019s losing performance. But things are dire in Starkville. State was in such a tailspin following a four-game losing streak, that any improvement is being met with praise. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4559,"featured_media":66520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[33096,33097,2452,1197,8272,8010,64],"class_list":["post-66291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sec","tag-2024-mississippi-state-football","tag-2024-sec-football","tag-dak-prescott","tag-dan-mullen","tag-jeff-lebby","tag-mike-elko","tag-texas-am-aggies"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}