STARKVILLE — This sort of football game is becoming an expectation for coach Dan Mullen’s Mississippi State University football team in season openers.
Saturday night turned out to be as painless as MSU hoped it would be as it completed its fourth-straight blowout win to start a season by defeating Jackson State University 56-9 in the season opener for both teams at Davis Wade Stadium.
The Bulldogs rolled up 377 total yards against the overmatched Football Championship Subdivision opponent. MSU has outscored its season-opening opponents 209-37 in four games under Mullen.
While questions existed throughout the preseason as to which new players would take to the stage early in 2012, plenty of familiar names did a lot of damage to JSU.
In his first full season as starting quarterback, Tyler Russell connected on two touchdown passes to receivers MSU fans are used to seeing in the end zone. Russell engineered the opening drive 66 yards and found senior Chad Bumphis on a 9-yard touchdown strike. Bumphis has six touchdowns in four season openers, and has recorded a catch in all but one of his 37 career games at MSU.
In a veteran move, Bumphis and Russell confused the cornerback into thinking he was watching the quarterback’s eyes the entire play.
“I saw that corner was trying to bait me and what he didn’t realize I was trying to bait him with Chad behind him,” Russell said. “I have complete confidence in Chad that he will get open in those situations.”
In his first game as the primary ball carrier, LaDarius Perkins scored on 8- and 1-yard scampers. It marked the sixth and seventh time Perkins has scored on running plays in his career. He then gave way to Nick Griffin, Derrick Milton, and Josh Robinson, who gained experience with the first-string offense.
“LaDarius got the workload we wanted him to get, and everybody got an opportunity to touch the ball,” Mullen said. “Mixing up those guys is great because of the experience it gives to people where it’s the first time they’ve ever played.”
Russell then found sixth-year tight end Marcus Green for a 13-yard pitch-and-catch to complete another near six-minute drive. Russell hit eight receivers in the first half and had a game-high 175 yards in a little more than two quarters.
“I kind of expected some mistakes to happen because you always are going to try to work on things just to see if they work with certain personnel,” Russell said. “I feel like this game was a big game for the older guys to show some younger guys how to play hard and what everything feels like out there.”
With 2 minutes, 32 seconds left in the first half, senior cornerback Darius Slay scored on a 52-yard interception return to become the fourth MSU upperclassmen to find the end zone. A miscommunication between quarterback Dedric McDonald and his receivers left a wide-open lane for Slay to find six points.
The touchdown gave MSU a 35-0 lead before halftime, and allowed the Bulldogs to get freshmen defensive linemen Quay Evans and Nick James playing time in front of a sellout crowd of 55,082.
Evans and James, the defensive tackle duo of the future in Starkville, combined for three tackles and a forced fumble.
“When big guys come out of high school the fact of the matter is they’re just not used to playing with other guys that’s similar to their size all the time,” Mullen said. “They realize it’s all about technique, so it’s nice in a game situation to see what its like to use your fundamentals under the lights.”
While the secondary goal was to get as many active players on the field, MSU’s veterans helped lead a dominating effort against the defending Southwestern Athletic Conference champion Tigers. Mullen
acknowledged after his 22nd victory as a head coach that the big plays will have to have to come from MSU experienced players next week if he is going to break his 0-4 record against Auburn University.
“We had a little bit of everything we can go through and teach this week,” Mullen said. “Hopefully, we will see a great improvement from this game to next week’s SEC kickoff game.”
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