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Congratulations go out to Tyler Russell, who last night played one of the better games he has played this season, and during which, broke an MSU record that had been standing since 1995. Russell's 14 yard touchdown pass to Chad Bumphis in the 3rd quarter of Saturday's game was his 17th TD pass of this season, giving him sole possession of a record that had been held by Derrick Tate for 17 seasons.
In a season that has seen ups and downs, Russell has been a consistent leader on the Bulldog offense - passing for at least 150 yards in every game he has played in. His latest effort, a 26 completion, 295 yard, 1 TD performance against LSU last night was the only reason MSU ever had a shot in the game, as Russell made great pass after great pass, giving the Bulldogs as much of a chance as he could at victory.
With any luck, Russell's record breaking isn't over for the year either, as he currently has 2,249 passing yards on the season, which is just 173 yards shy of the MSU record, held by Dave Marler (1978, 2,422 yards). Additionally, Tyler is just 4 attempts shy of breaking Kevin Fant's completions record, which stands at 186. Oh, and Tyler would have done it in nearly 50 less attempts. Completing passes at a 60.5% rate so far this season, Tyler is also most likely in line to break Tyson Lee's completion percentage rate of 58.8% (min. 200 passes), even though he will have potentially thrown between 75-100 more passes in the season.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, we are getting the record setting season out of #17 that we all expected.
Congrats again to Tyler, who has completely re-written the expectations level that State fans can have of their quarterbacks.