College Football

Mississippi State Football: How far are Bulldogs from sustained relevance?

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 10:08 p.m. ET

Fansided, Geoffrey Knox/FanSided via Saturday Blitz

It will take more than successful steps in recruiting and a passionate coaching staff for Mississippi State football to bully its way into the SEC's upper-tier.

They tried to keep it as quiet as possible for as long as they could, but junior wide receiver Malik Dear will miss the majority of the 2017 season with an ACL injury. Fans of the Mississippi State Bulldogs, and SEC fans in general, weren't going to allow news of this magnitude to remain a secret. Some of the questions surrounding how this team would respond in the wake of losing quarterback Dak Prescott were answered when Nick Fitzgerald stepped into the starting role. The results were satisfactory.

When the 2016 season reached its' conclusion, Fitzgerald had thrown for 2,423 yards and 21 touchdowns. He added another 1,375 yards and 16 touchdowns on the ground. Much of Mississippi State's success on offense in 2017 will be tied to Fitzgerald again. As mentioned, he loses the services of Dear for a considerable portion of the season.

The current offensive roster

With them relying so heavily on Fitzgerald, no one knows how deep this team is at the skill positions. Their second-leading rusher in 2016 was Aeris Williams who totaled 720 yards and four touchdowns on 137 attempts a season ago. The Bulldogs will want him to share the load with Fitzgerald to keep their quarterback fresh. No one outside of those two had more than a single touchdown or 300 yards rushing.

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The receiving core didn't produce one 1000-yard receiver. Fred Ross, the program's all-time leader in that category, was close with 917, but he plays for the Carolina Panthers now. If the Bulldogs want to sustain long-term dominance, they'll need to build on an offensive attack and open up the playbook. For most our recent memory, that playbook has been pretty one dimensional.

A quick look at the defense and recruiting

Richie Brown, as he did in 2015, led the Bulldogs in tackles last season, but he's also no longer on the current roster. They'll now rely on familiar names like linebacker Leo Lewis and defensive backs J.T. Gray, Brandon Bryant and Mark McLaurin. 247Sports.com sees their most recent recruiting class as 24th-best in the country.

As of the time of this article being published, they've already received nine hard commitments for the 2018 class including dual-threat quarterback Jalen Mayden. He's seen as a four star prospect, and he continues the winning streak at quarterback the Bulldogs have seen recently.

Conclusion

This team can be forgotten about when you discuss the SEC West. Playing a division that includes some of the best teams in college football will do that for you. Still, the success that they saw with Dak Prescott proves climbing to the top of the SEC West is possible. That will need to serve as one of the building blocks for consistent recruiting and sustained relevancy. As of now, they're a few years away, but stranger things have happened.

We'll have to wait and see what happens.