It’s hard to imagine a better ending for Nick Fitzgerald and the Mississippi State seniors’ Davis Wade careers than Saturday afternoon’s dominating 52-6 win over the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Bulldogs moved to 7-4 (3-4) on the season, with a Thanksgiving road trip to Oxford for the Egg Bowl now looming.

Truthfully, the Bulldogs played a near flawless game, particularly in the second and third quarters, when State outscored the Razorbacks 35-6.

Here’s my grading of the Bulldogs’ demolition of the Hogs in StarkVegas.

Offense

It’s hard to find many negatives about the Bulldogs’ performance on offense. They racked up 475 total yards, averaging 7.3 yards per play and accumulating an impressive 52 points. Look, I know the Razorbacks are a very bad team right now, but scoring that many points on any SEC foe is impressive.

Of course, the offense was led by Fitzgerald, who played arguably his best game of the season. He started very slowly and looked very much like the guy we’ve seen all year in the first half, completing just 4 of 9 passes for 38 yards (0 touchdowns, 0 interceptions) and averaging just 4.2 yards per attempt. He wasn’t making his reads properly, his mechanics in the pocket were errant and his ball placement was horrible, wildly missing open targets on numerous occasions.

The second half, however, was another story.

In the third quarter, Fitzgerald looked as good passing the ball as I’ve ever seen. This was peak Fitzgerald in terms of passing. In that quarter alone he was 4-of-4 for 70 yards with 3 touchdowns (0 interceptions), averaging 17.5 yards per attempt. He was tall, confident and poised in the pocket, going through his progressions, setting his feet and showing outstanding touch, timing and precision.

He finished the day completing 9 of 14 passes for 127 yards with 4 touchdown passes while adding 85 yards and a score on the ground. His rushing touchdown in the second quarter also made him just the third quarterback in SEC history to complete three seasons of 10-plus passing touchdowns and 10-plus rushing touchdowns, joining conference legends Tim Tebow and Dak Prescott.

Senior tailback Aeris Williams also enjoyed a terrific game, rushing for 104 yards on 15 attempts (6.9 yards per carry), and junior Nick Gibson finished with 48 yards and a score. The Bulldogs as a whole rushed for 287 yards and 2 touchdowns, averaging 6.1 yards per carry.

Credit: Matt Bush-USA TODAY Sports

Also, give a lot of credit to the Bulldogs’ offensive line, which made much of the success possible due to their dominance. The unit simply mauled an overmatched Arkansas defensive line, constantly generating a push in the ground game while doing a very good job of keeping the pocket clean for Fitzgerald.

The offense was running on all cylinders on Saturday, and it gave you a glimpse of what the Joe Moorhead offense can look like when the quarterback is completing passes downfield. It’s a beautiful scheme when executed properly, one that constantly puts the defense in disadvantageous scenarios and almost always leaves a man open due to mismatches and numbers.

Grade: A

Defense

Unlike the offense, which has played like Jekyll and Hyde all season, the defense has been completely and utterly rock-solid, and that was the case on Saturday afternoon. The Bulldogs allowed only 219 total yards (150 passing, 69 rushing) and just 3.17 yards per play.

The defensive line was its usual dominating self, constantly getting upfield to disrupt rushing lanes behind the line of scrimmage and applying pressure on Arkansas quarterback Ty Storey, who badly struggled in the face of constant harassment. The depth of the unit continues to impress me, as there’s little dropoff in effectiveness when stars like Jeffery Simmons and Montez Sweat are off the field.

The secondary was also fantastic, particularly Johnathan Abram and Jamal Peters (minus the penalty for the post-whistle shove). There’s a reason Abram is so highly thought of in the scouting community, and it’s because of how fast, aggressive and instinctive he is. His ability to make plays both on the flat and blitzing off the edge is a key piece to the unit’s overall effectiveness.

As a whole, the unit continued to play at a national championship-caliber level. They’re now giving up just 12.81 points per game, and if the season ended today, that would be the program’s best since 1981, when it allowed just 11.4 (in a much easier era for defense).

Grade: A

Overall

This is the ideal version of this team – a powerful rushing attack that chews up the clock and opens up shots downfield, a passing attack that capitalizes on mismatches due to unbalanced defenses and a defense that absolutely shuts down the opposing offense. The version of Mississippi State we saw against Arkansas was the team fans were hoping they would see all year, and if they had played like this against Kentucky, Florida, LSU and Alabama, they’d be the No. 1 team in the country right now. I know, the Razorbacks defense isn’t anywhere close to the aforementioned teams whom State lost to, but the execution was outstanding all afternoon. Kudos to Moorhead and Bulldogs for sending the seniors out in style in their final home game.