Mississippi State will get a chance to go bowling without being bowl-eligible. The Bulldogs will take it, officially accepting an invite to the St. Petersburg Bowl against Miami (Ohio).

The bowl is scheduled for Dec. 26 at 11 a.m. ET at Tropicana Field and will be the seventh straight bowl game under Dan Mullen. The Bulldogs are 4-2 in the previous six but have split the last four.

Mississippi State had a rough season, starting with a home loss to South Alabama, but a win over Texas A&M and against Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl got it to five wins and into a bowl season starved for participants. Mississippi State won’t have its seventh straight winning season but is looking to avoid its first losing season since 2009. That was Mullen’s first year. Here is everything you need to know about that other Miami, the Redhawks of Ohio.

The Redhawks started even worse than Mississippi State. They lost their first six games before closing with six straight wins, beating Ball State 21-20 to clinch eligibility under third-year coach Chuck Martin. Martin will be trying to lead them to their first winning season in seven seasons. He is 11-25 overall, this season’s six wins nearly half the 13 that Miami (Ohio) had totaled previously from 20011-15.

The regular season finish led to a second-place finish in the MAC at 6-2. The Redhawks’ biggest MAC win came 40-26 against Bowling Green, which finished third in the East at 4-8. They lost by 10 to conference runner-up Ohio.

The last time Miami (Ohio) lost was its worst loss, 35-13 at Akron, which finished 5-7 overall, 3-5, two spots back of Miami in the East standings.

The Redhawks pass a little better than they run, ranking seventh in the MAC with 228 passing yards per game and 10th with 134 rushing yards per game. They were one of only five teams with fewer than 40 total touchdowns. For perspective, Mississippi State scored 50 touchdowns – against the SEC.

Fifteen of the Redhawks’ 25 passing touchdowns came in their six wins to close the season. Seven of their nine rushing touchdowns also came in the final six games of the season.

Sophomore QB Gus Ragland was the answer to the opening six losses. Since he took over, not only is the team unbeaten, Ragland has yet to throw an interception on 149 attempts. He has completed 62.4 percent of those passes with 15 touchdowns and a passer rating of 167.5.

Mississippi State has 13 interceptions, two each for Kivon Coman, Mark McLaurin, Jamoral Graham and Jamal Peters. A 14th would be the first time Ragland has been picked. In limited time as a freshman, he threw three touchdowns and no picks on 29 attempts. He is accurate and has four receivers with at least 22 receptions, led by James Gardner’s 40 catches for 658 yards and 5 touchdowns. Ragland’s touchdowns include passes of 41, 55, 58, 70 and 74 yards.

Defensively, senior defensive lineman JT Jones is seventh in the MAC with 6.5 sacks. He also has 11.5 tackles for loss and is sixth on the team with 40 total tackles.

Mississippi State is going to run the ball with running back Aeris Williams and QB Nick Fitzgerald. When Fitzgerald does go to the air, he’ll have to watch out for Heath Harding and De’Andre Montgomery, tied atop the MAC with four interceptions each. The duo has combined for 17 pass breakups.

Mississippi State is 11-8 in 19 bowl games with an Orange Bowl win in 1940. Under Mullen, the Bulldogs won a Gator Bowl in the 2010 season and played in its first Orange Bowl in nearly a century. Miami (Ohio) is 7-3 in its bowl history, the St. Pete Bowl the first bowl game since beating Middle Tennessee in the GoDaddy.com Bowl in 2010. The Redhawks have four Tangerine Bowl games on that record and only one other bowl win since 1975, a GMAC Bowl win against Louisville in 2003.

It will be the fourth SEC bowl opponent for the Redhawks with previous back-to-back-to-back Tangerine wins again Florida, Georgia and South Carolina from 1973-75. Mississippi State is playing a MAC team in a bowl for the first time.