Two nights are all that separate Mississippi State's football team from an undefeated season.
Two very long nights.
After winning their first three games, including a 37-7 rout of visiting LSU, Dan Mullen's Bulldogs traveled to Georgia and lost 31-3 and then ventured to Auburn and lost 49-10. Both of those defeats were at night, so those long nights on the field became even longer with the journeys back to Starkville.
Road games obviously are nothing new to the Southeastern Conference, but with more kickoffs at night and with greater distances to travel with the league's additions five years ago of Missouri and Texas A&M, the term "wee hours of the morning" is coming into play more than ever before.
"The hardest thing with that is that you start getting back at 3 or 4 in the morning on multiple weekends," Mullen said. "I don't know if that's what we should be demanding of players. They are still student-athletes, and people like to throw around that term loosely, because everybody likes them to be student-athletes when it's convenient for them to be student-athletes, but I think people should be very cautious in scheduling.
"The hard part of this is that TV pays a lot of the bills, and TV wants their matchups when they want them."
Entering the final Saturday in October, there have been 30 head-to-head clashes of SEC teams, and 16 of those have been held at night. The most balanced league schedule took place Oct. 7, when Auburn-Ole Miss and Georgia-Vanderbilt started at noon, LSU-Florida and South Carolina-Arkansas had midafternoon kickoffs and Alabama-Texas A&M and Kentucky-Missouri were at night.
There have been a couple of Saturdays with one lunchtime start, one midafternoon start and three night games.
"At the end of the day, it comes down to the almighty dollar and television," South Carolina coach Will Muschamp said. "I don't know that things are going to change, but it is a little straining for young men to tee off at 7 o'clock on the road at Missouri or at Texas A&M and we're getting back at 3 or 4 in the morning.
"It certainly taxes you as the season rolls on, but I don't see it changing, so I don't know that my opinion really matters."
South Carolina will be the only SEC team this season to play at Missouri and at Texas A&M at night.
Television's impact on SEC football is undeniable, with revenue from television and radio rights fees providing the league a whopping $420 million during the 2015-16 fiscal year. In the 2013-14 fiscal year, which was the last fiscal year before the SEC Network launched, television and radio rights fees provided $210.4 million.
In 2009, the SEC began 15-year contracts with CBS, which is paying the league $55 million annually, and ESPN, which will fork over $2.25 billion for the life of that deal.
Still, the early mornings aren't much fun. Auburn, which traveled to Missouri last month for a night game, waxed Arkansas 52-20 last Saturday night in Fayetteville and got back to Auburn around 3 Sunday morning.
"The league really should try to protect teams and really try to have some control over schedules," Mullen said. "They should not just give blanket control to the networks to schedule you whenever they want to schedule you."
Said Auburn's Gus Malzahn: "It really is tough getting in so late. You just plan ahead and do the best you can."
Georgia, Tennessee and Vanderbilt are the only SEC teams yet to play a league road game at night this season, though that will change this Saturday when the Volunteers visit Kentucky. Kirby Smart's Bulldogs had a night game early this season at Notre Dame, but they were back in Athens at dinnertime after an Oct. 7 win at Vanderbilt, which kicked off at noon.
The Bulldogs played a night game at Missouri last year, winning a 28-27 thriller, but then lost the following week at Ole Miss 45-14 in their worst performance of the season.
"It's really challenging for the coaches, because you might be back up to work on the next opponent after getting in at 3 or 4 in the morning, but it affects the players more than anything," Smart said. "Their sleep habits get screwed up. They sleep in on Sunday morning, and Monday morning they have 7 a.m. study hall or class at 8 a.m. It's tough on them to get a routine going.
"I think each and every one of us in the SEC will admit the reason for it is the fact that we're playing on ESPN and they're making more money for it."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.