Dear Students, I am Hunter Cloud and this year I will be the sports editor. I want to welcome you back on behalf of me and my sportswriters. We all look forward to providing students and fans with the best content possible.
Everywhere you look on campus, there are signs of the storm that is coming: football season is upon us in Starkvegas. For some of the students here at MSU, this will be your first season in the student section, and my advice is to soak everything in like a sponge.
I urge freshmen and transfer students to go to the Junction Friday afternoon to watch the fans race to claim a spot for tailgating. Go to the Junction on game day and just observe all the fun, food and the united MSU family a few hours before the game.
This is also head coach Joe Moorhead’s first game of his first season. Since he was a coach at Pennsylvania State University, he has experienced one of the loudest and craziest atmospheres in the country, and his message to students was to make Davis Wade a crazy atmosphere, too.
“Ring responsibly. I’m excited for my first time in the stadium,” Moorhead said. “I came from a place where I thought it was the best student section in the country, and I hear the same about Mississippi State. You hear writers and the media say this is the best atmosphere in the country, so I want them to arrive early, be as loud as they can and give us a real home-field advantage. I think the students, fans and alumni will be very proud of the product we put on the field.”
This year’s team should be one of the best football teams MSU has fielded, and I think we need to give this team the respect they deserve. However, Moorhead is a first-year coach and the team’s first year in his system, so we need to create fair and realistic expectations for a team whose record year is 10-2 in 2014.
That is why I believe 10-2 or 11-1 would be the best-case scenario for Moorhead’s team. It may be his first year at this program, but this team has the best defensive line in the nation, a strong secondary, a deep receiving corps with many players who are much bigger, and talented running backs and quarterbacks.
There is one thing I know for sure about this team: they will fight for the people of Mississippi State, they will play for the fans and they will put everything they have into making this a memorable year. All they need is for their fans to support them in their efforts.
This team can reach for the stars, and that is why on Saturday night, when MSU takes the field and plays under the lights with all the hype, all the storylines from last year and this summer will be put to rest.
A new narrative will begin and hopefully, come December, it will be resumed in Atlanta and carried on until the last college football game is played. Hail State.
