Winning and losing is part of sports, but some defeats sting more than others. Each week, I-81 Sports recognizes an athlete, team or organization that had a particularly rough loss. We call it our “L of the Week.”
You ever heard a coach talk about how their team has learned how to win?
The gentlemen on the Mississippi State football squad appear to have skipped those lessons.
The Bulldogs are one of three teams in the mighty Southeastern Conference that has yet to win a conference game. The others are Arkansas, which already jettisoned coach Sam Pittman; and Kentucky. which seems both worlds away from competing with nearly every team in the conference and also saddled with a $38 million buyout if the Wildcats boot coach Mark Stoops.
What makes the Bulldogs stand out is that they have a knack for discovering a new and unique way each week to incur one crushing loss after another. They sniff out paths to heartbreak like one of those pigs that get trained to find truffles (Nicolas Cage even made a movie about them).
That batch of Bulldogs really outdid itself Saturday, though, squandering a three-score lead in the fourth quarter like Kevin Malone trying to carry his chili into Dunder Mifflin. To wit, Mississippi State led 38-21 with 12:29 remaining in the game.
Then the shenanigans started.
WHAM! Texas scored a touchdown with 9:34 to go.
BOOM! Texas kicked a field goal with 4:14 remaining.
ZOOM! The Longhorns fielded a punt and run it back 57 yards for a touchdown with 1:47 left, and the extra point ties the game.
But wait! Mississippi State still has a chance to win in regulation, advancing for a likely game-winning field goal when quarterback Blake Shapen fumbled. The Bulldogs lost 8 yards on the play, thus falling out of field goal range.
Off they went to overtime, where the Bulldogs knocked out Arch Manning on the very first offensive play by the Longhorns. Seems like a recipe for disaster for Texas, but not when your opponent is Mississippi State! Matthew Caldwell came in, called an audible, and dropped a fade pass into the end zone to win the game.
So continues a miserable stretch of football for the Bulldogs, who started the season by beating Arizona State as part of a 4-0 start. The OT loss to Texas is just more sugar poured into the gas tank after an overtime loss at Tennessee and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at Florida in a Gators performance that was so underwhelming that it cost coach Billy Napier his job even in a win.
So congratulations, Mississippi State, for receiving the first of these dubious honors. You may still not have any SEC wins, but you’ll always have this ‘L’ …