Mississippi State has made a run to six different bowl games under Dan Mullen. Well, some folks out here on the internets seem to think that run comes to an end in the 2016 season.
That’s right. CBS Sports has predicted that Mississippi State, along with three actually bad teams from the SEC (Missouri, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt) will be ineligible to make a bowl game this season.
Bowl Projections: Big Ten, Pac-12 to miss 2016 playoff https://t.co/1JLijeDiuN pic.twitter.com/5BUuFrFGWL
— CBS Sports CFB (@CBSSportsCFB) August 11, 2016
Mississippi State hasn’t missed bowl season since 2009. It’s been six consecutive seasons of bowl eligibility for Dan Mullen’s squad. But that’s not evidence enough to prove that Mississippi State has stability around the program and that the overall talent level has been significantly raised in Starkville.
So, how does Mississippi State not make a bowl game this season? Well, CBS Sports (and others) would likely expect for Mississippi State only win games against South Alabama, UMass, Samford, South Carolina, and Auburn. Although people are seemingly always high on Auburn in the preseason so maybe they think we’ll lose to them too, who knows? Maybe it’s Kentucky they expect us to win and Auburn they expect us to lose? It’s getting hard to tell which bad teams we’re predicted to lose to these days.
Regardless, to think that Mississippi State won’t even be bowl eligible in 2016? Well, that’s not something that I expected to see. But, given how media members at SEC media days predicted the Bulldogs to be last in the SEC this season, nothing should surprise me when it comes to how low expectations are set for Mississippi State from those outside of Starkville.