Mississippi State will open the 2016 football season tomorrow at 11 a.m. against the South Alabama Jaguars.
It will be the start of Head Coach Dan Mullen’s eighth season at MSU and will be the third and last time MSU plays the Jaguars as part of an agreement made in 2009.
MSU has won both their contests against the Jaguars and lead the series 2-0 all time. The first meeting was in 2012 at Davis-Wade, where MSU took a 30-10 victory. The second matchup was on the road for MSU in Mobile, Alabama in 2014. MSU beat the Jaguars in that game by a score of 35-3.
In what seems to be a transition year for MSU, the opener will be a battle ground between Damian Williams, a senior, and Nick Fitzgerald, a sophomore, for the starting quarterback position. After losing Dak Prescott to graduation, the quarterback battle has yet to be decided leading into the first game.
Mullen expects both quarterbacks to play in the season opener.
“I will be perfectly honest with you,” Mullen said in Monday’s press conference. “We are going to play more than one quarterback, and we are probably going to play more than one in the first quarter. I was hoping to have complete clarity in there being a definite starter, and I don’t think there is one yet.”
While MSU struggles to find a quarterback, they return a lot of their defensive and offensive stars. On offense, senior running back Brandon Holloway returns after rushing for 428 yards and receiving for 396 yards. He also averaged 23.6 yards on kickoff returns for a total of 567 yards last season. Senior receiver Fred Ross is also back after a record-breaking junior year. Ross, who missed the spring practice after surgery on his groin, talked about his health earlier this week.
“I’m ready to go; I’m 100 percent, and I’m ready to play football,” Ross said. “It was hard watching my teammates, the receivers go out there and work hard. I wanted to go out there with them.”
On defense seniors Richie Brown and A.J. Jefferson lead the squad. Brown, a linebacker, led the team last season with 109 tackles and 6.5 sacks to go with one interception. Jefferson, a defensive lineman, had 47 tackles and a team leading 13.5 for a loss and five sacks. Jefferson said he was excited to lineup against someone who was not on his team.
“I’m tired of seeing Elgton Jenkins and Justin Senior,” Jefferson said. “I’m excited for it, first game of the season. It is going to be fun to show what Coach Peter Sirmon and Coach Brian Baker have us doing.”
On the other side of theball, South Alabama is coming off a 5-7 record and is starting a new quarterback in Dallas Davis. They leaned heavily on their running back Xavier Johnson last season, who had 1447 all-purpose yards with 956 of those being rushing yards, and seven rushing touchdowns.
Junior Jeremy Reeves leads the Jaguar’s defense. Reeves, a cornerback, had 96 tackles last season with two interceptions and six pass break-ups.
The game will be at 11 a.m. in Davis-Wade Stadium tomorrow and will be broadcast on the SEC Network. Next Saturday, MSU takes on South Carolina for their first SEC game of the season.
