Head coach Joe Moorhead started a tradition at Fordham University and kept it with him when he took over the Mississippi State University’s football team.

If you watched the game on Saturday, you may have noticed the players had little bulldog stickers on the back of their helmets. Moorhead said the bulldog can represent a handful of things.

“There is a defined set of criteria for offense, defense, and special teams,” Moorhead said. “From a simplistic standpoint, you have one for a home win and two for a road win. Then there are ones for numerical or statistical benchmarks.”

Those stats and other qualifications are tracked by the coaches. The process is very complex, so Moorhead could only explain it a little bit.

“Our coaches all have the sheet when they grade the film, they go through and hand it to our director of football operations,” Moorhead said. “He then hands it to the equipment guy. It would take a while to go through all of the ways to get one.”

Moorhead previously coached at Fordham and Penn State before coming to MSU, and while the practice of using helmet stickers to reward players for performance is not new, it is a new idea at MSU.

“I did it at Fordham, I did it there before I came here,” Moorhead said. “I did it just to create some sort of tradition and get the kids excited about their performance.”

The stickers add motivation for MSU remaining undefeated.

“They only get them in wins as well, you cannot get them in a loss,” Moorhead said.

Look for the new stickers on MSU’s helmets when they take the field at 6 p.m. Saturday against the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.