OXFORD — The Mississippi State football team won’t win a national championship this season.
The Bulldogs won’t play for a Southeastern Conference title, either.
In the aftermath of a 31-17 loss to Ole Miss on Saturday, those realities were harsh for the Bulldogs, but hope remained.
“It hurts,” MSU defensive lineman Kaleb Eulls said, “but it doesn’t take away from the season we had. We will have to bounce back from this and get ready for a bowl.”
That’s the reality MSU faces after Ole Miss denied it a chance to win the Southeastern Conference’s Western Division and knocked it out of the No. 4 spot in the rankings for the inaugural College Football Playoff. Now the Bulldogs will have to wait their fate until Sunday, when they will earn an invitation to a bowl game.
In all likelihood, that invitation will be to as prestigious a bowl as MSU (10-2, 6-2 SEC) has seen in its history. Should the Bulldogs maintain a spot in the College Football Playoff Selection Committee’s weekly rankings, where they’ve been for the past five weeks, they should be in line to draw a bid from one of the top four non-playoff bowls — Fiesta, Peach, Cotton, and Orange Bowls. Due to conference tie-ins and other factors, the most likely landing spots for the Bulldogs are the Orange, Peach, and Cotton Bowls.
“We should get a great bowl,” MSU quarterback Dak Prescott said. “We just have to use these extra practices to get better, and we need to have fun getting ready for this bowl game.”
Six bowls — the Cotton, Sugar, Rose, Fiesta, Orange, and Peach — are scheduled for New Year’s Day. The Rose and Sugar Bowls will serve as semifinal games for the first College Football Playoff. The Bulldogs, particularly if they stay in the top 10, are almost guaranteed a New Year’s Day bowl.
On Sunday, staying in the top 10 appeared to be a realistic goal after MSU was ranked No. 10 in the Amway Coaches Poll (USA Today) and the Associated Press Top 25. The Bulldogs are in the top 10 of each poll for the eighth-consecutive week. In previous weeks, MSU’s standing in the polls has been in lockstep with their ranking in the committee’s weekly list, as the Bulldogs were No. 1 for three weeks before dropping to No. 4 following a 25-20 loss at Alabama.
“We have a whole lot of time before we play in a bowl game, so we’ll be fine,” said MSU coach Dan Mullen, who has led the Bulldogs to five-straight bowl games, a first for the program. “We’ll come out and have great weeks of practice and get our guys healthy, get our young guys some reps to continue building this thing for the future.”
For Mullen, the loss to Ole Miss in the regular-season finale was “devastating. We’ve got a lot of guys down about this one.”
Despite the loss, Mullen’s second in six seasons to Ole Miss, the Bulldogs still had one of the best seasons in Starkville, collecting school records for regular-season wins and achieving the first No. 1 ranking in school history.
Against the backdrop of such success, the loss was still hard to swallow for Mullen, who has put great emphasis on the annual Egg Bowl.
“It’s a very tough loss because of who it’s to,” Mullen said. “Give them credit. Their guys battled and made a whole lot of big plays. When we look at this season as a whole, it’s kind of hard to say this wasn’t a very successful season for Mississippi State.”
MSU will continue that season at an unknown destination. Currently the second highest-ranked SEC team behind No. 1 Alabama, MSU should figure prominently into bowl selection next weekend.
“We’ll get a great bowl game,” Mullen said. “How you handle adversity is more important than how you handle success. I’m really proud of how these guys played all season long. We had more wins in the regular season than I think any team in school history. These guys have set a new standard at Mississippi State. A lot of guys are devastated, but we will continue to strive to build a championship program.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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