No one gave the Mississippi State Bulldogs much of a chance in their first game of the 2020 college football season. The team was coming off a sub-par 6-7 2019 season and a Music City Bowl loss to Louisville. On top of that the Bulldogs had brought in a new head coach in Mike Leach and a new quarter back in KJ Costello. With no spring football to help this team adjust to their new offense or their new quarter back it looked like an easy win for the defending national champion LSU Tigers.
However, the Tigers had some problems of their own. Despite coming off of a 2019 dream season in which they finish with a perfect record and took home a National Championship, COVID-19 and the NFL draft had taken a tole on LSU football. Fourteen total players from the 2019 roster were drafted in the NFL draft. Players were also given the chance to opt out of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several of them took that option as others left the team in different ways. When it came down to it the LSU Tigers football team entered training for the 2020 season with a total of thirty one players from the 2019 championship roster gone, including seven offensive linemen, five defensive linemen, and five linebackers. Despite the loss of so much of their team, the Tigers still came into their first game against the unranked Mississippi State Bulldogs as the number six ranked team in the country and LSU fans were excited to start the season.
That excitement would, however, dwindle as Mississippi State’s new “air raider” offense got going. Mississippi State’s star Running Back, Kylin Hill, who last season had 242 rushing attempts for 1350 yards, had only 7 attempts for 34 yards. However, on Saturday Hill lead the team in receptions with 8 catches for 158 yards. Even more impressive was Mississippi State’s new quarter back, KJ Costello. In his SEC debut, Costello completed 36/60 passes and passed for 623 yards, which set the record for most passing yards by an SEC quarter back in a single game. In addition Costello had five touchdowns in the game. Two more stand outs on the offensive end were wide receivers Osirus Mitchell and Javonta Payton. Mitchell racked up seven receptions for 183 yards while Payton finished with six receptions for 122 yards.
All-in-all not having spring football to fine tune the offense didn’t appear to be a problem for the Bulldogs. Other than a couple of turnovers and several faulty snaps, Mississippi State’s offense look solid and cohesive. Quarter back and wide receiver chemistry didn’t seem to be an issue either as Costello had a total of ten different targets, six of which had two or more receptions.
The Mississippi State defense also came ready to play. The Tigers were held scoreless in the first quarter and LSU’s new quarter back, Myles Brennan, was sacked seven times. In fact, LSU’s offense only scored one touchdown in the first half.
The Mississippi State Bulldogs pulled off a historic upset, beating the number six ranked LSU Tigers 44-34 in Death Valley. As of now the Bulldogs stand as the number 14 team in the country while the Tigers have fallen out of the top 25. next week LSU will be away as they face Vanderbilt at 6:30 p.m. while Mississippi State will take on Arkansas at home at 6:30 p.m.
The Contender 