It’s honestly surprising that Mississippi State made a bowl game this year.
We’re talking about a team that opened up their season with a loss to South Alabama, who struggled in wins over 6-6 South Carolina and 2-10 Massachusetts, whose only real highlight during the season was a stomping of Ole Miss, who went 5-7 and did not make a bowl game. By nearly every stat that we can measure, Mississippi State was a subpar football team, a team that in many other years wouldn’t be playing in the postseason at all.
Teams with losing records normally aren’t allowed in bowls, they’re only taken if there aren’t enough teams above .500 to fill all the bowl game slots. Mississippi State has a great Academic Progress Rate, or APR, and that was the deciding factor for the Bulldogs getting into a bowl game. They square off against Miami (OH), the first team in NCAA history to win six straight after losing their first six games of the year.
Here, in all this, is Fred Ross, the senior wideout from John Tyler High in Tyler, Texas who is simply looking to finish his career out well. Last year, during State’s incredible run through the SEC, he had a dominant year, catching 88 passes for just over 1,000 yards. Now, without Dak Prescott, Ross is more or less on the same level. He’s down 20 catches from last year, and his yardage total only sits at 873 yards, but he has 12 touchdown catches.
The Bulldogs are squaring off against a red-hot team in the Miami Redhawks, and they’ll need every single bit of Ross’s explosiveness if they’re going to take this one home. The former four-star prospect is likely on his way to the NFL, so closing his season out with a win is definitely something high on his list.
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