STARKVILLE — The story Mississippi State University football coach Dan Mullen is telling the media about his team’s game at 11 a.m. Saturday (ESPN) against Auburn University may not be what he’s telling his players.
With a microphone in his face, Mullen has said repeatedly the matchup is important because it is the first Southeastern Conference game of the season and will be a positive or negative initial step on the journey to reach the league’s title game in Atlanta.
Inside meeting rooms and behind closed doors with his players, it is impossible to hide the personal significance of beating Auburn.
“We know this game has significance for coach Mullen, and he wants to beat them really badly for a lot of reasons,” MSU redshirt freshman tailback Derrick Milton said. “We want to win it just as badly, too, but it’s talked about this week how big it would be for coach if we won.”
Mullen said Monday he doesn’t think about his 3-12 record against the Western Division of the Southeastern Conference, or the fact his only wins have come against the University of Mississippi.
“We’ve beaten Florida, Georgia, Michigan and we’ve beaten a lot of teams, so we’ve lost to a bunch of teams, too,” Mullen said. “I really think about this season and my goal every year is to win the SEC West. To do that you really need to win your first conference game.”
The members of MSU’s senior class also never has beaten Auburn in their career, and never have started SEC play 1-0.
“There’s a list of goals we want to accomplish before we leave here, and doing something about never beating a Western Division opponent besides the school up north (Ole Miss) is something we have to do something about,” MSU senior defensive back Corey Broomfield said.
MSU has lost to Auburn by close margins each of the past two years. Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton led Auburn to a 17-14 victory in Davis Wade Stadium in 2010. Last season, as a six-point favorite at Jordan-Hare Stadium, MSU had a chance to tie or to win the game on the last play but lost 41-34.
“I’ve made a huge emphasis, I’ve talked about it over and over, one if you want to compete for a championship you have to win all your home games because the competitiveness of being on the road in this league is tough,” Mullen said. “(The) opportunity to start a SEC season at home against a West opponent, it’s very important to find a way to win this football game and catapult yourself into the rest of the season within conference play.”
Not only are the teams familiar with each other, but there is a deeper connection. New Auburn offensive coordinator Scott Loeffler replaced Mullen as quarterbacks coach at University of Florida after Mullen left the school to become coach at MSU.
“I’ve known Scott a long time,” Mullen said. “His foundation comes from Michigan and running the Michigan offense for all those years. Then I think he’s added to it, some of the stuff we did in Florida. It’s a combination. The tough part is seeing where his personality strikes. He’s a guy that’s going to utilize their personnel to do what they can do well. I don’t know if we’ve got to see the total personality of that offense is, what their focus is, what type of team they’re gonna be. Are they more older Michigan? Are they more, kind of, a little bit spread-based?”
Mullen said Monday he was convinced Auburn held some of its offensive playbook back in a 26-19 loss to No. 14 Clemson University.
“It does have that flavor and some touch of that spread offense in there,” Mullen said. “We’ll see. I think we’ll see a little bit more out of them this week.”
MSU, Auburn receive same number of votes in The Associated Press poll
MSU isn’t ranked in this week’s Associated Press poll. Coming off a 56-9 victory against Football Championship Subdivision Jackson State, MSU received three points, which is tied with Auburn for 40th.
The last time neither team was ranked entering a MSU-Auburn matchup was 2009, when Mullen lost his Southeastern Conference debut as a head coach 49-24 at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
The only national AP voter with MSU on his Top 25 ballot is Arkansas Democrat Gazette beat reporter Tom Murphy, who has the Bulldogs No. 23.
The University of Alabama (No. 1), LSU (No. 3), the University of Georgia (No. 7), the University of Arkansas (No. 8), the University of South Carolina (No. 9), and the University of Florida (No. 24) were a part of this week’s poll, giving the SEC six teams, the most of any league.
Alabama secured the top spot in the poll after a 41-14 victory against the University of Michigan last weekend in Dallas. It received 45 of 60 possible first-place votes. The University of Southern California, the preseason No. 1 team, dropped to No. 2 despite a 49-10 victory against the University of Hawaii on Saturday night. It received 11 first-place votes.
“I would agree with (voters),” USC coach Lane Kiffin said Tuesday. “I didn’t watch any of the game because we can’t, but from what I heard, they played a really good Michigan team in a big matchup and played really well.”
LSU received four first-place votes and placed third, followed by defending Pacific-12 Conference champion University of Oregon and the University of Oklahoma.
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