Well, that was interesting.

Mississippi State trailed Louisiana Tech 31-14 after 3 quarters on Saturday but outscored Tech 21-3 in the 4th quarter for a 35-34 victory on Saturday in Week 1.

At the end of the day, unless a team is trying to win a national championship, a win is a win. But, it wasn’t easy for MSU in Starkville.

Many of our bold predictions came true in the first Mississippi State football game of the year including an MSU first-half deficit, some big plays and occasional sloppiness from both teams.

In the end, the victory is what matters. But, beyond the Week 1 triumph, what can we learn from this team after one game?

We learned that the team believes in coach Mike Leach. After trailing by that much it would have been easy for MSU to pack it in and mentally move on to the next week. The kind of fight that the Bulldogs showed will resonate through the locker room and perhaps for years to come.

We learned who the quarterback is as Will Rogers appeared to have locked down the job.

Rogers was hot at the start, completing 19 of his first 22 passes including two touchdowns. Rogers looked like he commanded the Leach offense and the respect of his teammates.

Despite the performance, the young QB did, at times, wait too long to make a decision with the football. This resulted in a sack early on as well as a few other negative plays.

Heading into SEC play later this month, that will need to be cleaned up. But, that’s not the only aspect of the game that Leach will need to clean up after this game.

The MSU Bulldogs allowed two home run touchdowns of 59 and 72 yards, respectively. That is the kind of thing this team cannot allow against SEC opponents.