After five straight weeks of SEC play, the top-ranked Mississippi State University Bulldogs will play their second home game as the No. 1 team in the nation. This week the Bulldogs  get a break from the SEC gauntlet as they welcome FCS opponent Tennessee-Martin.
Although Mississippi State faces a team with considerably less talent than the Bulldogs, Head Coach Dan Mullen doesn’t take any week lightly. With the break from SEC play, Mullen said he wants to see his tenacious team continue to get better down the home-stretch of the season.
“A lot of our focus this week is looking at how we can improve,” Mullen said. “We’re on our guys every day about improving every single day. (This Wednesday’s) practice has to be better than last Wednesday’s practice. We’ve got to raise that bar every single week.”
The most important games of the year, and perhaps in MSU history, are coming up fast. Next week, the Bulldogs must travel to Tuscaloosa to take on the improving Alabama Crimson Tide. Mullen knows the importance of a team staying hot in the last month of the season.
“We need to continue to improve throughout the season,” Mullen said. “We want to peak at the end of the year, not here in the middle.”
Along with their 8-0 start, the Bulldog’s offense has fostered a potential Heisman Trophy candidate in Dak Prescott. 
However, after Prescott’s sizzling start to the season, he has been criticized the last two games for not being as explosive as he was in the first six games of the year. Mullen said he knows that is just part of being a candidate of the award.
“That’s part of the attention,” Mullen said. “At the beginning of the season, if I’d have told you that we were 8-0, then I’d imagine Dak would be a Heisman contender.”
Against Arkansas Prescott threw two interceptions, but he also put up a career high in passing yards while also getting his completion percentage over 60 percent. 
“We take a lot of pride in protecting the football.,” Mullen said. “I am obviously not very happy to have almost two years worth of turnovers in eight games.”
Prescott said he puts a lot of his success on reading his progressions and hitting the check-down receivers.
“I just go through my reads and try to make my throws,” Prescott said. “The coaches do a great job of putting me in the right place. I just have to read the defense, go through my progressions and try to get it to the open guy.”
A big reason why Prescott has been having to throw more is because of the man that lines up beside him, running back Josh Robinson, also known as the “human bowling ball.”
Robinson leads the SEC in rushing touchdowns with 11, and his work on the field has begun to be noticed week in and week out for opposing teams.
“Everybody in the country is going to try to take away the run first,” Robinson said. “But we just have to stay balanced, stay focused and do what we do.”
Another storyline for the game this weekend is the return of former MSU quarterback Dylan Favre.
“He is a play maker. I know that,” Mullen said. “We always knew that when he was here. If you put him out there exciting things are going to happen, some good and some bad. I do not know if it gives us much of an advantage. He is going to be used to this environment. He has played in this stadium and has been in that environment before.”
Saturday’s game gives the Bulldogs a chance to improve to 9-0 for the first time since 1999 and in front of a big crowd on homecoming weekend.
“They are a very well-coached football team,”Mullen said. “They are a little unorthodox at times. They will come at you on defense from a lot of different directions. They run an up-tempo offense. They are on a four-game winning streak right now, and they have dominated their last two opponents. Their team is playing with a lot of confidence, and obviously this is a big opportunity for them. They are going to come in with a chip on their shoulder, and it will present a huge challenge.”
The Bulldogs match up very well against UT-Martin, and barring an Armageddon upset, Mississippi State should roll into Tuscaloosa unbeaten and the top team in the country.
The game time is set for 3 p.m. on the SEC Network. The Dawg walk is at 1 p.m.