Prescott, Mississippi State quietly having a great season without much fanfare
By John Hollis
Published:
His continued excellence has remained hidden in relative obscurity, largely overlooked nationally much like the Mississippi State football team as a whole.
But senior quarterback Dak Prescott and the Bulldogs have the full attention of Missouri coach Gary Pinkel as the teams prepare to meet in Thursday night’s nationally televised game in Columbia, Mo.
Mississippi State, which was idle last week, enters the game ranked 24th nationally and winners of three consecutive games. The Bulldogs quietly rolled up at least 42 points in each of the victories to improve to 6-2 overall and 2-2 in the SEC.
Pinkel took notice, even if the rest of the country may not have.
“We’re playing a very, very good football team,” Pinkel said during his Monday press conference. “Mississippi State’s playing really well. They’ve got one of the best quarterbacks in the country playing at that kind of level. Good receivers. We’re playing a very, very good defensive football team. Very good up front on both sides of the ball.”
Prescott, who finished 8th in last year’s Heisman Trophy voting, may be the best quarterback in the nation right now. He tied a school record with 6 touchdowns (three passing, three rushing) while throwing for 348 yards and rushing for 117 yards to pace MSU to a 42-16 thrashing of Kentucky on Oct. 24.
He’s responsible for 21 touchdowns this season (14 passing, 7 rushing), his lone interception coming against UK to snap a string of 288 passes without an interception. Prescott leads Mississippi State in rushing as well with 371 yards on 72 carries.
The only thing he doesn’t do for the Bulldogs is sell popcorn at the concession stands.
So how is it that he’s barely an afterthought on the evening sports highlights or among the slew of talk radio jocks?
That can largely be attributed to the fact that Starkville is one of the SEC’s most remote outposts with no major metropolitan media center nearby.
Prescott and his teammates are too often out of sight, out of mind.
Additionally, the narrow 21-19 loss to LSU on Sept. 12 and a 30-17 setback at the hands of Texas A&M on Oct. 3 caused many outside of the Bulldogs Nation to essentially write the team off, even with a transcendent talent at quarterback.
Prescott, who led a team that was ranked No. 1 for several weeks last season, has been largely overlooked by the media despite his weekly brilliance since gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated in August.
“How anybody’s not talking about (Prescott) in the Heisman race, you gotta have your head examined,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said, according to the Clarion-Ledger. “Because he is a fantastic player with a lot of poise and a lot of good weapons.”
Prescott is the only active FBS player with at least 7,000 career passing yards and 2,000 career rushing yards. He’s one of only three players in SEC history to have thrown for at least 50 touchdowns and ran for at least 30 more scores in his career, joining a pair of notable former Heisman Trophy winners in Florida’s Tim Tebow and Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel.
Yet, Prescott remains largely overlooked by the national media, much like Mississippi State as a whole.
The Bulldogs’ 19-6 record over the last 25 games is tied for 2nd in the SEC only behind Alabama’s 20-5 mark over that same span.
Who knew? As always with Mississippi State, the answer is not many.
John Hollis is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers Georgia and Florida.
