STARKVILLE – Success can change a man.
But not Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen.
Asked on Wednesday, during his time as part of the Southeastern Conference’s weekly coaches’ teleconference, if seeing his team ascend to its first No. 1 ranking in school history will change the way he recruits, Mullen was frank.
“We won’t change our approach,” said Mullen. “We really trust our own evaluations of how we look at guys. I’ve seen guys that are supposed 5-stars that I would disagree greatly with that rating. And I’ve seen guys that should be rated higher.”
Not that anything needs to change. In his sixth year as head coach, Mullen has built a winner in Starkville, a tough, physical football team that is built on the backs of former two-and-three star recruits that slipped through the cracks on mainstream recruiting services. That includes quarterback Dak Prescott, the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman Trophy three years after emerging from Haughton High near Shreveport, Louisiana as a three-star prospect with few Division-I scholarship offers.
That list also includes a number of defensive standouts for the 6-0 Bulldogs, stars like defensive end Preston Smith, who has won the SEC’s Defensive Lineman of the Week award three times in this, his senior season, despite being a three-star unknown with few major scholarship offers four short years ago.
“Coach Mullen knew what he was building,” said Smith, a 6-foot-6, 267-pounder out of Stone Mountain, Georgia. “I knew when I signed here what he had planned, he let us know from the start that we would have to earn everything.”
The Bulldogs have earned everything. Currently ranked at No. 1 for the second straight week, MSU will head to 5-2 Kentucky this weekend to play a game as the nation’s top-ranked team for the first time in program history. MSU will make the trip with a defense that has its roots in Mullen’s early foundation-building classes. Ten of MSU’s defensive starters were signed in the recruiting classes of 2010 and 2011, a defense that currently ranks in the top three in the SEC in tackles for loss, sacks, third-down defense and leads the nation in red-zone scoring defense.
It includes unwanted gems like junior cornerback Taveze Calhoun, safety Kendrick Market and linebacker Benardrick McKinney, none of whom sported another SEC offer coming out of high school.
No matter for Mullen, who trusts his staff’s evaluation of players and has used that to build a defense that has allowed just 55 first-half points this season.
“One of the things we want to try to do is stick with what we believe and how we evaluate players. It doesn’t mean we don’t want 5-star players. We want everybody to be a 5-star player in our mind,” Mullen said. “But we also want guys that aren’t satisfied where they are in high school.”
Kentucky awaits
Up next for the Bulldogs will be a trip to face a wounded Kentucky team, a squad that dropped a 41-3 decision at LSU last Saturday. Still, second-year head coach Mark Stoops has the Wildcats on the brink of bowl eligibility for the first time, and a win over MSU would give Stoops his first marquee win in Lexington.
“Playing in the SEC gives you a bigger game every week,” said Mullen. “This is the biggest game we have played of the season. I said the Auburn game was the biggest game ever played in the state of Mississippi. This game is bigger now. Now we are a team that has a target on our back. We have to go on the road in a hostile environment and play one of the hottest and most improved teams in college football. Our guys better learn how to handle that and realize how big of a game this really is.”
In Lexington, the Bulldogs’ defense will face a balanced Kentucky offense that has shown flashes of being quite good this season. Tailback JoJo Kemp, who does most of his damage out of the wildcat formation, leads Kentucky with 300 yards rushing.
Sophomore quarterback Patrick Towles has thrown for 1,645 yards and 10 touchdowns.
“Towles really throws the ball well and has the size to be able to stand in the pocket and throw it,” said Mullen. “He is very deceptively athletic. He is a much better runner than he gets credit for. They rotate their running backs through and they all bring something different to the table. They have some explosive wide receivers. They certainly have a lot of big time players on their team. Our focus is to get a fourth SEC win this week, and that is really what it is all about.”
MSU combats the arm of Towles with a defensive backfield that has forced 11 interceptions this season and is holding team to a completion percentage of just 52 percent, each ranked in the top half of the SEC. But the Bulldogs remain dead last in passing yards allowed, a stat not unnoticed by the MSU coaching staff.
“I think we want to be going up as the season goes along,” said MSU cornerbacks coach Deshea Townsend. “You know, guys are going to make plays, technique changes. But for us we got it going at the right time. We want to be peaking as the season goes and I think our guys are doing that right now.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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