The Mississippi State football program occupies a very unique and uncertain piece of territory this season. If that statement seems overly cryptic, no worries — an explanation exists, and it’s going to form the heart of this particular article.
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Mississippi State had been part of the SEC’s football underclass for a good 70 years before the 2014 season began. The Bulldogs had won one SEC title, in 1941. That’s it. In over 20 years of split-division SEC competition dating back to 1992, the Bulldogs won the SEC West once (1998) — more than Ole Miss, but still nothing to be too excited about. Dan Mullen’s career had seemingly stalled in Starkville. Once rumored for the Florida job, Mullen stayed put and watched his career stagnate. Even in some of the postseason games Mississippi State won — such as the 2011 Music City Bowl against Wake Forest — the Bulldogs left a less-than-glowing impression. Looking at that game against Wake Forest in Nashville, it was impossible to resist the idea that if Jim Grobe coached Mississippi State and Mullen coached the Demon Deacons, the score would have been a lot more lopsided in favor of the Bulldogs.
Mullen, in short, carried a career into the 2014 season that was long on hype but relatively short on substantive achievements.
Then came 2014.
Mississippi State — which normally would have been Tiger meat when going into Baton Rouge on a Saturday night — thrashed LSU in Death Valley. Ignore the final margin, due to an “Indiana versus Penn State, 1994” rally by the Tigers. The Bulldogs kicked Les Miles’s team up and down the field inside Tiger Stadium. The masterclass got everyone’s attention, but it also thrust a lot of expectations upon the Bulldogs, something they certainly weren’t used to under Mullen.
Mississippi State handled Texas A&M at home without much trouble, but then defending SEC champion Auburn and the Gus (Malzahn) Bus rolled into StarkVegas. Surely, the party was going to stop for the Bulldogs. Surely Auburn would weave some of its magic and show that the old guard in the SEC West still called the shots.
This is when the identity of the Mississippi State program and the arc of Mullen’s career truly changed.
The LSU win was the attention-getter, but a convincing spanking of Auburn showed that the Bulldogs could handle some attention. The klieg-light glare of publicity did not throw them off balance. Mullen — who had been through a national championship journey with Urban Meyer at Florida — found himself in the heart of a national-title conversation at Mississippi State… and for awhile, he and his team were up to the challenge.
This is where the story gets a little more complicated.
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While Mississippi State has not generally breathed in the thin and elevated air of championship expectations, being No. 1 in the rankings nevertheless dumped a lot of weight on the program and its coach.
Steve Spurrier said it in his career at Florida and in his (lamentably bitter) press conference earlier in the week: People don’t much care about you when you’re 6-6; they relish beating you only when you’ve won enough to get their attention (and their hatred). Mississippi State, by being successful at a level hardly ever seen in three quarters of a century, had to shoulder Old Demon Pressure. That’s the nature of the beast in college football, and what’s more is that strong teams lay in wait in the home stretch of the SEC schedule.
Unlike the A&M and Auburn games, Mississippi State had to play Alabama and Ole Miss on the road. The game at LSU was house money; few expected MSU to win that contest. Going to Tuscaloosa and Oxford — with that bulls-eye on the back — marked a very different pair of experiences.
The Bulldogs lost both games and tumbled out of the College Football Playoff conversation.
A 10-2 regular season simultaneously represented a remarkable accomplishment for Mississippi State football… and an emotionally difficult reality. How many programs face that kind of split existence — doing something far beyond preseason expectations and historical standards, yet feeling downcast and disappointed at the end of the journey?
In the Orange Bowl against Georgia Tech, the pilot light seemed to be out for the Bulldogs, especially on defense. No, that’s not an excuse, ACC fans or other non-SEC folks: Mississippi State was a shell of the version that thumped A&M and Auburn. Georgia Tech was also a damn good team, one that regained the triple-option magic under Justin Thomas that had been missing ever since the Josh Nesbitt days several years earlier. The Yellow Jackets are a prime playoff contender for 2015, and they earned the right to be seen as such by blasting the Bulldogs out of Miami in supremely authoritative fashion.
Mississippi State — carrying the flag for the SEC and the notion of “SEC strength” due to its rise to No. 1 last season — ended the campaign with a 10-3 record and a lot of bumps and bruises. MSU and Ole Miss both reached higher and climbed farther than they have in years, and yet, when so forcefully kicked to the curb in bowl games, they both became poster children for the SEC’s decline.
How will Mississippi State respond to this reality with a substantially retooled roster in 2015? That question will get answered on the field in the course of time. For now, though, one can simply ask, “How SHOULD this team and Dan Mullen respond to their critics?”
The answer — said with the full knowledge that I was very much a Dan Mullen skeptic heading into 2014 — should be something akin to this: “Truck you!”
If Mississippi State, under Mullen, doesn’t ever reclaim the heights it tasted last season, the Bulldogs can — and should — still say that they rose to an elevation greater than any of their critics and skeptics thought they would or could. Mullen, in 2014, shattered the notion that a team can’t win big in Starkville. The SEC West title eluded the Bulldogs; the lost the Egg Bowl; and their postseason bowl certainly stung — all of that remains true. Yet, merely competing on Alabama’s level and being unmistakably superior to both Auburn and LSU in the same season — if only for one season — should give Mullen and his players nothing but a feeling of immense satisfaction.
No one can ever take away the 2014 season from Mississippi State. Heading into 2015, coaches and players should not feel as though they have to defend themselves, their track record, or the identity of the SEC. They should feel that they achieved something significant — because they did — and move forward with the 2015 season, intent on making more memories in Starkville.
