STARKVILLE – With 2:17 left in the game, Mississippi State quarterback Nick Fitzgerald coasted the final 10 yards into the end zone to complete a clinching 76-yard touchdown, dropped the ball as he crossed the goal line, then thrust his arms wide open, nodding his head in satisfaction.
For that, Fitzgerald was called for an 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
It’s probably time Bulldog fans actually cheered a penalty called on a Bulldog player. For if ever a player earned the right to strut a little, it was the Bulldogs’ senior quarterback. It was well worth those 15 meaningless yards.
Redemption? Vindication? Neither seems hardly appropriate to describe the reversal of fortune for Fitzgerald over the span of a single week.
On Saturday night, Nick Fitzgerald passed for two touchdowns, ran for two more and accounted for all but 55 yards of the Bulldogs’ 384 total yards as the Bulldogs stunned No. 16 Texas A&M, 28-13.
His second rushing TD, the one that earned him that penalty, also put him atop the Bulldogs’ all-time rushing TD list with 32, a spot he will likely share only momentarily with Anthony Dixon.
But those four scores and those 329 yards, remarkable as they may be on their own, gain even greater luster in the context of Fitzgerald’s performance just seven days earlier.
On that day, Fitzgerald left the field at LSU after one of the most miserable passing days any quarterback is likely to endure, completing just 8 of 24 passes for 58 yards and throwing four interceptions in a thoroughly demoralized 19-3 loss. Fitzgerald was the goat and we’re not talking the acronym for Greatest of All Time.
How bad was it?
Going into Saturday’s game, it wasn’t just a matter of how well Fitzgerald would play; it was a question of how much he would play. During the week, Bulldogs coach Joe Moorhead admitted that at some point against the Aggies, back-up quarterback Keytaon Thompson might play.
Given Fitzgerald’s showing against LSU, it was not beyond question that Thompson might be the guy playing the meaningful minutes for the rest of a season gone wrong.
Thompson did play, too, but it was limited to three plays in the second quarter.
After that cameo, the game was Fitzgerald’s, for better or worse.
And on a night when MSU’s season seemed poised to teeter on the precipice of disaster, the Bulldogs got better.
Much better.
After a week of second-guesses and bitter criticism, not only of Fitzgerald, but for his coach, whose reputation as an offensive genius seemed like a cruel mockery as the Bulldog offense foundered, the Bulldogs needed everything Fitzgerald had.
Moorhead’s post-game demeanor clearly reflected that feeling of vindication.
“For all the B.S. that kid has had to endure through parts of this season and knowing everything he’s gone through – laying his heart and soul on the line for this program and university and having to listen to all that stuff,” Moorhead said. “‘I’m happy for every kid in that locker room, but I’m most happy for that kid because he deserves it.”
Saturday’s game had the feeling of a must-win game and when the Bulldogs went to halftime trailing 10-7, a Davis Wade Stadium crown of 57,085 fidgeted uncomfortably in their seats as visions of Birmingham or Shreveport or some other consolation prize of a bowl game danced in their heads.
But in the second half, Fitzgerald took over, out-gaining the entire Aggie offense, 229 yards to 145, throwing a go-ahead TD pass in the third quarter, then rushing for two scores in the fourth quarter, turning a tense defensive struggle into a thoroughly satisfying 15-point win.
In those two quarters, MSU changed the narrative of its season. State is now 5-3 overall, 2-3 in the conference and will be a solid favorite to win three of its last four games. State will take its medicine in a visit to Alabama, but an 8-4 season seems likely if not almost certain.
It’s not the season Bulldog fans expected in August, but it’s probably better than the season Bulldogs fans contemplated just a week ago, when Nick Fitzgerald was the lower-case goat of a season gone terribly wrong.
Redemption?
You bet.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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