Mississippi State's new 'biggest game ever' looms

photo Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott celebrates after running for a touchdown during the Bulldogs' win against Kentucky at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, Ky. Prescott and teammates face their biggest game of the season so far against host Alabama.

Welcome to the next "biggest game ever" for Mississippi State.

Dan Mullen's Bulldogs have played three consecutive games as the top-ranked team in college football, defeating Kentucky, Arkansas and UT-Martin, but they haven't faced a challenge quite like this. On Saturday afternoon, Mississippi State will venture to Tuscaloosa with the goal of knocking off Alabama inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.

The Crimson Tide have played just two Southeastern Conference opponents at home this season, dismantling Florida and Texas A&M by the combined count of 101-21, but Mullen believes his players will be relishing the opportunity.

"They love it, and this is what they came to school here for," Mullen said. "They wanted to put us in a position to where we're on the national stage here at Mississippi State. In the past, I know Mississippi State has had some big games, and it's been here or there throughout history on the national stage.

"We want to consistently be on that national stage and play in these big games. We tell our guys that when you win a big game in the SEC, your only reward is a bigger one the next week."

Unranked at the start of the season, Mississippi State first caused a stir with a 34-29 triumph Sept. 20 at LSU, a game the Bulldogs led 34-10 early in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs followed that two weeks later with a 48-31 whipping of visiting Texas A&M, which vaulted them to No. 3 in the country.

Mississippi State had attained its previous high rank of No. 7 in 1981, and its new lofty status would surely be brief when No. 2 Auburn came to Starkville on Oct. 11. That is until the Bulldogs raced out to a 21-0 lead and made enough plays down the stretch to prevail 38-23.

The victory over Auburn was billed as the biggest game in Mississippi State history, but it has to step aside as the Bulldogs (9-0, 5-0) visit the No. 4 Crimson Tide (8-1, 5-1). Yet that experience of upsetting Gus Malzahn's Tigers still could serve a purpose.

"They were No. 2 in the country at the time, and our guys came out and played at a really high level with energy and juice," Mullen said. "We executed and played for four quarters, and we also went down to LSU and played really well in a really hostile environment. We'll be getting into that Saturday, and I think our guys draw back and look at what they've done throughout the year in handling different environments.

"Obviously this is a different team from those two teams, but I think we are used to handling the situation and the environment."

Alabama and Mississippi State have been constructed in different ways.

The Crimson Tide have been the primary face of the conference since Nick Saban's second season as coach in 2008, compiling an 80-10 record with three national championships. It is a shock when Alabama doesn't rack up the nation's No. 1 recruiting class, with 20 of the Tide's 22 projected starters for Saturday having been rated as four- or five-star prospects coming out of high school.

Mississippi State, meanwhile, has long been an SEC punching bag, with its one conference championship occurring just days before the Pearl Harbor bombing. The Bulldogs project to have only three starters Saturday who were four- or five-star prospects, yet they haven't been ravaged by early defections to the NFL, which have affected Alabama and LSU in recent years.

The Bulldogs could play up to 15 fifth-year seniors against the Tide and have as many as 10 who could start, and that's what has Saban concerned.

"It's a huge benefit for them," Saban said. "In this day and age in college football with all the juniors going out for the draft, it's very difficult to keep a team together that long to gain that type of experience and that kind of maturity. The number of career starts they have on offense and defense contributes to that in a large degree, because they've had those guys in their program for a long time.

"They do a great job in that program of developing players, and those guys have the knowledge and experience to be better players than they've ever been before. That contributes into being consistently successful."

Though Mississippi State is the higher-ranked team, it is an 8.5-point underdog.

This is nothing new for Alabama, which has been favored in 64 consecutive games since being an underdog to Florida in the 2009 SEC championship game. It's also nothing new for the Bulldogs, who were given little chance against LSU and Auburn.

"We're back to the team we were to begin the season and earlier this season," MSU quarterback Dak Prescott said this week in a news conference. "Nobody expected us to win. We were the underdogs in all those games, and it feels good to be back to that. It's good to be who we are."

Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.

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