Nick Fitzgerald is Proving Many Hypercritical Mississippi State Fans Wrong

Some fans out there have been hypercritical of Nick Fitzgerald. He’s had some bad moments this season, sure. But some have never been satisfied with how Fitz has played and have dreamt of replacing him. It was unreasonable to do so after two bad losses on the road. It should never be considered again.

Fanposts like this called for Keytaon Thompson to start the Texas A&M game over Fitzgerald. It wasn’t a good idea at the time that it was drafted, now it’s certainly time to stop considering starting anyone over Fitz. Statements such as the following have no reason to ever be said again unless you’re joking around on twitter:

After wards I reflected on the game and it brought on delusions of Keytaon getting the start against the Aggie's ( Bulldogs vs Aggies coverage ) rather than Fitz. This would never happen, but if it did, I believe we would see a similar, if not better result than if Fitz got the start.

Against the Aggies, Fitzgerald totaled 246 yards and three touchdowns, with two of those touchdowns coming through the air. For the third consecutive week, and the fourth time this season, Fitz ran for over 100 yards. Facing the Aggie defense in that stadium, it would’ve been hard for a freshman such as Keytaon Thompson to put up those kind of numbers. And yet, some people earnestly voted such as this in a poll in the fanpost mentioned above:

Many have argued that Nick’s season hasn’t been a good one. This is true if you were to only boil down this season to two games. On the year, he’s accumulated 1986 yards and 23 touchdowns. Fitzgerald is averaging 248 total yards per game and 2.9 touchdowns per game.

Though these numbers aren’t as impressive as the 292 total yards per game and the 2.8 touchdowns per game that he averaged last season, Fitzgerald hasn’t had to be the sole producer on offense thanks to a reliable group of running backs to turn to.

Nick Fitzgerald has been an incredibly productive quarterback for Mississippi State. Even before this season started, he proved himself to be the second best quarterback to play under Dan Mullen. On top of that, Fitz is putting his name up there with some of the greatest the SEC has ever seen.

As this season wears on, and definitely during next season, we’re going to see Nick Fitzgerald’s name scribbled in some record books across the conference. He’s got 6146 total yards and 66 touchdowns to his name. There will almost assuredly be more considerably more of both. It’s not unreasonable to assume that he accumulates over 11,000 total yards and 100 touchdowns given the pace that he’s set as a starter. If he’s healthy, his name will be right next to Dak’s, for a lot of records.

His production and leadership have put Mississippi State in solid position for another 9-3 season. If he continues to be efficient in the air and succeed on the ground, hopefully we’ll never see someone have such bad hot taeks.