On Nov. 1, 1980, the No. 1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide came into Jackson Memorial Stadium riding a 28-game winning streak under coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
The Bulldogs were not ranked, but freshman quarterback John Bond, who was recruited by Alabama, said he knew MSU would win after remembering comments Alabama quarterback Don Jacobs made in reference to the Dawgs one year prior.
“He said, ‘That’s one game we always look to that we know we’re going to win, but we’re going to come out of there with some scars,'” Bond said. “That always stuck with me, and I was just thinking the week before – we’re going to take these guys.”
With 13 seconds and counting left in the game, MSU led the Tide 6-3 and Jacobs had Alabama on the Bulldog four-yard line. The Dawg defense had held Bama’s offense in check all day and needed one more stop. Bond admitted he was worried, but again, he just had a feeling.
“I was just thinking, ‘Oh here we go, one of those Alabama stories we grew up with; they come back at the last second to win and all that kind of stuff,'” Bond said. “But I had a good feeling about this.”
As the seconds ticked away, Jacobs took the snap and rolled to his right looking for an open man. However, the last person he saw was MSU defender Tyrone Keys who drilled Jacobs in the backfield and forced a fumble, which the Bulldogs recovered.
The Dawgs took possession on the two-yard line with six seconds left, and all they had to do was kneel the ball. Bond said he noticed prior to the snap an Alabama linebacker was hovering almost on top of center Kent Hull, but neither knew what he was doing. As soon as Hull started to hike the ball, the linebacker slapped the ball out of Hull’s hand and it went straight into the air.
“I didn’t even move from under center because I never even touched the ball,” Bond said. “Everyone was looking around for the ball, and I’m hollering, ‘Who’s got it? Who’s got the ball?’ and I heard my boy Donald Ray King. He had a very distinctive Mike Tyson voice, and he said, ‘I got it JB; I got it!’ So, I knew we were OK.”
In 1980 there was no instant replay. The referees ran off the field (and the fans rushed on) as soon as MSU recovered the ball, and the upset of the year was complete. Bond said he considers the end of that game to be the start of a real rivalry between Mississippi State and Alabama – a series dating back to 1896.
Virginia Military Institute coach Sparky Woods was an assistant coach at MSU from 1999-2002 and at Alabama from 2003-06, and he said the closeness of the two schools – 90 miles apart – is what makes the game such a rivalry.
“It’s two great schools within miles of each other right down Highway 82,” Woods said. “There’s a lot of carryover. The high school kids there play against each other, and they’re both recruited by the same schools.”
The rivalry heated up a bit in the ’90s when Jackie Sherill, a Bama graduate who won two national championships playing under coach Bryant, took over as the head coach at MSU. Woods said when he worked with Sherrill the Alabama game was always circled as a must-win and was typically one of the most emotional games of the year.
When Woods took his post in Tuscaloosa, it was only to find himself on the other side of an intensified rivalry, as MSU had hired another Bryant-coached Bama grad – Sylvester Croom, who had been spurned when the Tide hired a new coach. Woods said the MSU game was always important to Alabama but was not as big of a deal as it was to the Bulldogs.
“When I went to Alabama, we were scared of playing MSU because we knew that they had these really good athletes, and it came at the end of the year right before we played Auburn,” Woods said. “But I felt like the rivalry might have been a little bit bigger for Mississippi State than it was for Alabama.”
The Tide, Woods said, was so successful for so long that multiple schools considered them a rival. He said the numerous embarrassments suffered at the hands of the Crimson Tide over the years led to the passion Bulldog fans have for thumping Alabama.
“They [fans] love to beat Alabama,” Woods said. “Alabama had all that success the years Coach Bryant was there, and people got tired of getting beat up on.”
Ole Miss, of course, is the traditional in-state rival, and the Battle for the Golden Egg is always one of the most important games for the Bulldogs. However, senior receiver Brandon McRae said the Alabama game may have become just as big as the Egg bowl, particularly after a few years under Croom.
“It’s close,” McRae said. “They don’t like us, and we don’t like them. It’s been pretty big the last couple of years, especially when we beat them here. It’s very heated and emotional on the field.”
Coach Dan Mullen said it did not take him long to recognize the rivalry with a team the Bulldogs have beat two of the last three years.
“Most of our kids are from Mississippi or Alabama,” Mullen said. “For us, for our fans, it’s obviously a geographical rivalry, being an hour and a half away. Talking to a lot of our fans, I know this is a big game.”