The Hogs head to Starkville for a potentially season-defining game against the Bulldogs.

Series & Program History

Arkansas is 18-13-1 all-time against the Bulldogs, with two straight wins. The Hogs won nine straight from 1999 to 2007 and then three straight from 2009 to 2011. State then responded with four straight wins from 2012 to 2015 during the post-Petrino chaos.

Mississippi State is a historically moribund program. Despite being a founding member of the SEC, their lone SEC title came in 1941. They tied with Arkansas for the 1998 SEC West title but lost in the SEC title game. Their all-time SEC record is 240-439-24.

After years of total ineptitude, the tide began to turn with the hiring of Jackie Sherill in 1991. He went just 75-75-2, but he reached six bowls in 13 seasons. His tenure ended in ugly fashion, with an NCAA inquiry finding several recruiting violations during the final six years of his tenure. Sherill retired after the 2003 season and avoided direct penalties.

Sherill is the winningest coach, but Dan Mullen is probably the best in school history. Mullen went 69-46 (33-39 in SEC) during his nine seasons. Though he only finished in the top 3 of the SEC West once (2014), he ended his tenure with eight straight bowl appearnces.

Following a weird two-year Joe Moorhead era, Mike Leach took over for the 2020 season. Leach is 15-14 (8-12) but has generated tremendous excitement within the program.

Recent posts

• Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 76, Lipscomb 60
• Box Score Breakdown: Ole Miss 63, Arkansas 31
• Matchup Analysis: Ole Miss
• Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 58, Mississippi State 25
• Matchup Analysis: Mississippi State

2022 Season Context

The Bulldogs are looking for that next step under Leach. After going 4-7 and 7-6, an 8-win season is definitely the goal. The Bulldogs seem to be on track. The toughest challenge in a weak non-conference schedule has been a road trip to Arizona, which went 2-10 last year but is improved this season. The Bulldogs won that one, 38-20. The only blemish is a 31-16 loss at LSU, a game where the Tigers rushed for 200 yards and tackled extremely well in the open field to keep State’s offense in check.

Last week, State righted the ship, crushing Texas A&M 42-24 in a weird game that saw the Bulldogs force four turnovers and have two non-offensive touchdowns: a pick-six and a blocked field goal. A 9-win season is very possible if the Bulldogs can win Saturday. But with Alabama, Ole Miss, and Kentucky remaining, 7-5 is the most likely result should State fail to beat the Hogs.

State’s offense is very good, with LSU as the only team to even come close to shutting it down. The defense has been very average. It is strong against the pass but susceptible to getting pushed around in the trenches.

Names to Know

A player you’ve heard of: Dak Prescott. Yep, going with the easy one here. Dak briefly had the Bulldogs ranked number one in the nation in 2014. How he fell to the fourth round, I’ll never know, but he’s been the full-time starter for the Dallas Cowboys since 2016.

A coach you’ve heard of: Emory Bellard. Bellard was the Texas offensive coordinator under Darrell Royal who invented the wishbone. The wishbone was still brand new when Texas and Arkansas faced off the 1969 Big Shootout. Later, Bellard was hired at Texas A&M, where Arkansas’ 31-6 stomping of the 2nd-ranked Aggies in 1975 delivered Frank Broyles his final SWC title and denied the Aggies a chance to win a national championship. Bellard left for State after the 1978 season and had some immediate success. In 1980, the Bulldogs upset Bear Bryant’s top-ranked Crimson Tide, but Bellard’s tenure turned south after 1981. Before the 1985 season, he predicted State would win the SEC title. They went 0-6 in conference play, and he was fired.

A game you’ve heard of: Auburn 3, Mississippi State 2 (2008). The Sylvester Croom era was weird. Croom was the first African-American head coach in SEC history. His defenses were fantastic, but his offenses were not. The infamous 3-2 loss to Tommy Tuberville and Auburn was part of a 2008 season that saw both coaches fired at season’s end.

Random Facts

With 23,000 undergraduates, Mississippi State is, in fact, the largest university in the state, larger than Ole Miss.

The university is best known in the academic world for excelling in unique degrees: its programs in veterinary medicine and turf grass management are considered to be among the best of any public university in the nation.

The city of Starkville is named for Revolutionary War hero John Stark, who commanded American forces at the Battle of Bennington and is perhaps most famous for coining the phrase “live free or die“, which is now the state motto of New Hampshire. He has no tie to the city of Starkville.

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