STARKVILLE — It wasn’t an easy loss for the Mississippi State football team to take.
MSU’s 38-27 loss to Ole Miss on Saturday night at Davis Wade Stadium in the Battle for the Golden Egg marked the second year in a row the Rebels walked away with the Egg Bowl trophy.
But as much as the loss stings, MSU (8-4, 4-4 Southeastern Conference) still has another game to play. As one of 10 bowl eligible teams from the SEC, MSU coach Dan Mullen said his team will turn its focus to preparing to win the last game of the 2015 season.
“We want to try and finish with a bowl win and send this senior class out with a win and a nine-win season would be pretty special,” Mullen said.
MSU will play in a sixth-straight bowl game in December or January. The Bulldogs will find out their bowl location Sunday. Until then, MSU’s players will concentrate on final exams, which begin this week and end next week. MSU hasn’t announced when it will begin preparation for its bowl game.
The loss to Ole Miss (9-3, 6-2) dropped MSU out of The Associated Press and Amway Coaches polls, while the Rebels moved from No. 19 to No. 16 in The AP poll and from No. 19 to No. 17 in the coaches poll.
Media members picked MSU to finish last in the SEC Western Division, but it finished sixth ahead of Auburn. MSU beat Auburn and Arkansas, which finished 7-5 and 5-3.
In Mullen’s tenure, the Bulldogs are 3-2 in bowl games. After losing to Ole Miss, MSU is 0-2 in bowl games with Mullen as its coach.
“We’ve got to put this loss behind us and keep moving,” MSU junior wide receiver Fred Ross said. “This loss doesn’t define who we are as a team. We’ve just got to go into that bowl game and finish strong.”
Ross had 12 catches Saturday to give him 81, a single-season school record. With 933 receiving yards, he could become the second player in MSU history to record 1,000 receiving yards in a season. Mardye McDole had 1,035 yards on 48 catches in 1978.
Mullen has defeated Michigan (52-14) in the 2011 Gator Bowl, Wake Forest (23-17) in the 2011 Music City Bowl, and Rice (44-7) in the 2013 Liberty Bowl. The losses were to Northwestern (34-20) in the 2013 Gator Bowl and Georgia Tech (49-34) in last year’s Orange Bowl.
The loss to the Yellow Jackets came after the Bulldogs opened the season with nine-straight wins and sat atop the major polls for five-straight weeks. After the first nine wins, MSU finished 1-3.
MSU plans to use the bowl loss and the finish to last season as motivation.
“Going into this bowl game and coming off this loss (to Ole Miss), we just feel like we need to dominate whoever we’re playing, no matter who they are,” Ross said.
CBSSports.com projects MSU to return to the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl and play Miami on Jan. 2 in Jacksonville, Florida. CampusInsider.com projects MSU to play Michigan in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1 in Tampa, Florida.
“We’ve just got to go get a win,” MSU senior quarterback Dak Prescott said. “This team is going to be remembered (by the bowl). We’ve got to finish off the season the right way.”
As a starter, Prescott is 1-1 in bowl games. He helped the Bulldogs beat the Owls in the Liberty Bowl and lost to the Yellow Jackets.
Prescott has thrown for 3,413 yards and 25 touchdowns (four interceptions). He leads the team with 541 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns.
In addition to the speculation about which bowl MSU will play in, Mullen’s name has been mentioned in connection with multiple job openings. He said last Monday in his weekly news conference that he “loves the job he has” and wouldn’t talk about any other jobs as long as he was employed by MSU.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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