It's been 10 years since the Aggies reached five wins before suffering a loss, a decade-long span they'll look to end this weekend when they play host to the Mississippi State Bulldogs. In recent years this matchup has felt like another tune-up against a program that's lost 16 of its last 17 conference games, but there's a feeling down south that this team is done being the doormat of the SEC.
The newfound stability from the team in Starkville, Mississippi
Jeff Lebby has done an impressive job building up this team from where it was a season ago — off to a 4-1 start that includes a nice home win over Arizona State and a close overtime loss to Tennessee last weekend. This team went 2-10 last year and was at one point embarrassed at home by Toledo by a final score of 41-17, so even if this season doesn't end for greatness, it's already in a much better place than it was in less than a calendar year ago.
A huge part of that stability has been the performance of its starting quarterback Blake Shapen, who missed eight games last season with injury. Shapen, a three-year player at Baylor, has been a welcome leader of the offense: completing 66 percent of his passes for over 1,000 yards to go with nine total touchdowns and just three interceptions. This offense fell off significantly when Shapen got injured, with Michael Van Buren completing just 54 percent of his passes and throwing just 11 touchdowns over a 10-game span.
This is all important to mention because there's still a widespread belief that this is the same Mississippi State we watched struggle all last season, but this team needs to be taken much more seriously this time around. I'm not saying the Bulldogs are going to storm into Kyle Field and win by 50, and they could look totally different in their first conference road game of the year, but this game still needs to have a sense of urgency from the Aggies if they want to avoid upset.