FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott and Arkansas quarterback Brandon Allen tried to outdo each other Saturday night.
Prescott and Allen traded touchdowns and kept trying to put their team in a position to win with fabulous plays in an offensive struggle. They combined for 914 passing yards.
“That is an impressive quarterbacking performance as you’re going to see in college football on both sidelines,” MSU coach Dan Mullen said.
In the end, Prescott did a little more to help his team, as the senior led the Bulldogs to a 51-50 victory on a cold night at Razorback Stadium.
Prescott said he had never been involved in a game that was so wild that featured two quarterbacks having the best two games of their careers.
“He (Allen) did a great job,” Prescott said. “I met him at some camps during the summer. He’s a great guy, a great competitor, and he did a good job.”
Prescott was 38 of 50 for a single-game school record 508 yards and five touchdowns. He also rushed for 46 yards and two touchdowns to make him responsible for seven touchdowns, just the ninth player in Southeastern Conference history to do so. He has five-straight 300-plus yard games and is the first SEC quarterback to do so since Arkansas’ Ryan Mallett accomplished the feat in 2010.
The Haughton, Louisiana, native became the fourth player in Football Bowl Subdivision history to pass for 60 touchdowns and rush for 40 touchdowns in a career, joining Central Michigan’s Dan Lefevous (2006-09), Florida’s Tim Tebow (2006-09), and Nevada’s Colin Kaepernick (2007-10).
Mullen, who also coached Tebow at Florida, had high praise for Prescott after the game.
“He might be the best player I’ve ever coached,” Mullen said. “If you look at my coaching resume, that’s pretty impressive.”
Prescott’s total of 554 yards of offense gives him 11,153 in his career, fifth most in SEC history.
Allen was 30 of 43 for 406 yards and seven touchdowns. He became the eighth player in league history to be responsible for seven touchdowns in a game.
Last year in Starkville, Allen threw 238 yards but didn’t have a touchdown.
“That’s a totally different quarterback compared to last year,” MSU junior linebacker Beniquez Brown said. “Last year they ran it at us all night, but this year they were going back and forth.”
Trailing 31-14 with 4 minutes, 44 seconds left in the first half, Allen began to bring the Razorbacks (6-5, 4-3) back. He hit Jared Cornelius for a 9-yard touchdown with 52 seconds left in the first half to trail by only 10 at halftime.
He then hit Sprinkle for a 3-yard touchdown and Hunter Henry for touchdowns of 39 and 18 yards to give Arkansas 28-straight points and a 42-31 lead.
“We usually stick to whatever is working during the course of the game and I would say our passing game was working pretty well,” Allen said.
The Razorbacks only rushed for 73 yards.
In the second half, Prescott had a 3-yard touchdown, a 10-yard touchdown to De’Runnya Wilson, and the game-winning 14-yard touchdown to Fred Ross.
Even after MSU’s offense turned the ball over three times in the second half leading to the lead being taken away, the offense had faith, especially with Prescott in control.
“That’s our quarterback, that’s what he brings to the table, so we have to have faith in him,” Wilson said. “We already know he’s a great leader and he’s going to leave it all out on the football field. We just try to feed off that.”
Prescott took over the game for the Bulldogs in the second half, something he has done numerous times for the Bulldogs in his career.
“When we didn’t make mistakes, we got the tempo going, drove the ball, converted and made touchdowns,” Prescott said.
Ross and Wilson both had a game-high 10 catches, but Ross had 154 yards and two touchdowns and Wilson had 93 yards and one touchdown. Brandon Holloway and Fred Brown also caught touchdowns.
For Arkansas, Henry had seven catches for 129 yards and two touchdowns. Sprinkle had three touchdowns, while Drew Morgan hauled in one score and Cornelius had the other.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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