After a week off Mississippi State will travel to Columbia, Missouri to take on the Missouri Tigers in a special Thursday night football game. The Tigers are 4-4 on the season overall and 1-4 in SEC play. MSU will enter the game at 6-2 overall and 2-2 in SEC play.
The Bulldogs have a lot on the line as they are surprisingly still in the SEC west race. They need to win out and get some help and that all starts Thursday night. The Bulldogs are hot coming off of a three week homestead in which they outscored opponents a combined 132-53. While Mizzou has been on a three game losing streak in which they score a measly 12 combined points. One of those loses came to Vanderbilt, it was the Commodore’s first SEC win in almost two years.
MSU will have the QB advantage, as they usually do, as they are led by Dak Prescott. Prescott is entering the game leading the team in passing and rushing with 2048 passing yards and 371 rushing yards. He has also accounted for 21 total touchdowns this season. De’Runnya Wilson is the leading receiver with 524 yards and six touchdowns.
The story, however in the week leading up to the game has been of Missouri’s QB Maty Mauk. Mauk, a junior, was a suspended four weeks ago going into Mizzou’s game against South Carolina for violating team policies.
However, last Tuesday Mauk was reinstated and many hoped this would give life to a stagnant offense. However, just days after being reinstated, Maty Mauk was suspended once again on Sunday, this time for the rest of the season. This will once again leave freshman Drew Lock as the starting QB. Lock is 77-152 for 763 yards and had three touchdowns and three interceptions through four games.
Missouri is also 127th out of 128 teams in the country in total offense, they are averaging just 276 total yards a game. However, where the offense has failed the defense picked up coming in at 6th in the country, just giving up 281 yards a game.
MSU, on the other hand, is more middle of the road on both offense and defense. The Bulldogs rank 40th in the country in yards per game on offense with 445. On defense they rank 51st in the country in total defense and giving up 375 a game. However, MSU ranks 21st in the country in point given up, as they are only giving up an average of 17.8 points game.
MSU has opened up as a touchdown favorite in the game, as some sites have MSU to win by seven points. The game will be on Nov. 5 and it will start at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
