Mississippi State football won their first football game after the death of head football coach, Mike Leach. The Bulldogs won 19-10.
As games have all bowl season for lots of teams, Mississippi State’s first formation of the game was the Air Raid where they took a delay of game/moment of silence to honor Mike Leach.
With punts by both sides, the first real notable drive of the game started when Tommy Devito led Illinois down the field into field goal range. They were in field goal range but missed the 52-yard kick, giving the ball back to Mississippi State. Mississippi State was unable to do anything with it and had to punt.
Illinois would punt it right back. Mississippi State would get the ball back and would actually get a first down before Will Rogers threw an interception to Matthew Bailey. Mississippi State was at the goalline and was unable to score due to the interception.
Illinois couldn’t take advantage of the turnover and gave the ball right back to Mississippi State. Will Rogers would give the ball right back to Illinois as he got an interception this time by Kendell Smith. This time, the Fighting Illini would go down the field for a touchdown.
With less than 3 minutes left in the first half, Mississippi State was getting shutout and was down by 7. Will Rogers was able to redeem himself after two interceptions and led the Bulldogs down the field. They were unable to capitalize in Illinois territory and had to settle for three.
The second half would start with punts by both sides. Illinois would go down the field for a field goal, in what would be their final points of the game. They were able to get into Mississippi State territory, but they were unable to get another first down as Devito got sacked on third down.
Mississippi State would respond with their best offensive possession of the game, as Will Rogers led the Bulldogs down the field for a TD. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Rogers was able to find Justin Robinson for an 8-yard score on fourth down.
For the rest of the game, neither offense would be able to put any real drive together as both sides struggled to get multiple first downs. After three punts, Will Rogers was able to put together a drive that would win the game for Mississippi State.
With the help of the running game, Rogers was able to dwindle down the clock to almost triple zeros, allowing Mississippi State to put a field goal from PAT attempt range. Mississippi State would go up 13-10 with 4 seconds left. Illinois would try one last play, but the ball ended up getting fumbled and Mississippi State football took it for a touchdown to make it a 19-10 final score.
Mississippi State football beats Illinois, 19-10
In all of these pieces this season, I have talked about how the bowl game impacts their season. Rather than do that, I will talk about Mike Leach. During his time coaching, Mike Leach was one of the reasons I loved college football. Look up any of his press conferences, and you can tell that man had a lot of funny thoughts.
He was also one of the game-changers of college football, and football in general creating the Air-Raid offense. Mike Leach was one of the people that made college football special. The team honored Leach with helmet decals that represented him with a pirate flag on their helmet.
Addtionally, among the other ways this game was honored, lots of people came to the stadium with a flag saying “swing your sword”. He was also a great man according to all accounts.