Dan Mullen has accomplished so much as Mississippi State’s football coach, guiding the Bulldogs to a program-record six consecutive bowl appearances and leading them to a No. 1 ranking two years ago.
Yet when it comes to that daunting climb of trying to catch Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide, Mullen’s team is getting further and further from the summit.
Alabama humiliated Mississippi State 51-3 on Saturday, posting its largest margin of victory against the Bulldogs since a 53-0 drubbing in 1932, which was the year before the formation of the Southeastern Conference.
“Alabama obviously has a great football team,” Mullen said after the game in a news conference. “As I’ve said before, they have great players from top to bottom, and their guys who aren’t on the field and can’t get on the field would probably start for most teams in the country. We knew that coming in, and we knew we had to play a great game.”
Mississippi State played a fabulous game the week before, upsetting then-No. 4 Texas A&M 35-28, but the Bulldogs were decked quickly at Alabama and trailed 30-0 at halftime. The Crimson Tide took their opening possession 63 yards before settling on a 30-yard Adam Griffith field goal, while the Bulldogs’ first possession netted 4 yards and preceded a 17-yard punt.
The Tide capitalized on the short field with a 4-yard touchdown pass from Jalen Hurts to Calvin Ridley, but they scuffled on their next two possessions before ArDarius Stewart’s 67-yard touchdown reception made it 17-0 at the 12:36 mark of the second quarter. Alabama racked up 359 first-half yards a week after going into the fourth quarter of its 10-0 win against LSU tied at 0-0.
“We wanted to come out, play fast and just really prove ourselves,” Alabama left tackle Ross Pierschbacher said. “After last week, I felt that we had a lot of stuff to clean up, and I think we came out and did a good job.”
Alabama finished with 615 yards, with Hurts passing for 347 and rushing for 100 to become the first quarterback in program history to notch 300 passing and 100 rushing yards in the same game. Hurts has 735 rushing yards this season, 56 shy of the school record for a quarterback, which was set by Steadman Shealy of the 1979 national champions.
Stewart led Tide receivers Saturday with eight catches for a career-high 156 yards and three touchdowns.
Alabama held the Bulldogs to 274 total yards and 3.5 yards per play, which paled to the 8.5-yard clip the Tide offense averaged. The domination extended into special teams as Alabama averaged 51.3 yards per punt to just 30.0 by Mississippi State.
“I think it was a team effort today,” Saban said. “The offense controlled the tempo of the game, and the defense was able to get stops when they needed to. There were a couple bad field-position situations early in the game with a turnover and a kickoff return, but the defense went out and got stops, which was a real key to the game.
“I was just really proud of the way our guys competed.”
Saban has given his team today off from practice. Alabama will host the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Saturday before closing its regular season Nov. 26 by hosting Auburn.
The Tide already has a spot in the SEC title game after Auburn lost 13-7 Saturday at Georgia.
Tide tidbits
Alabama has 64 consecutive wins over unranked foes, while 11 of the 13 other SEC programs have been defeated by unranked teams this year alone. The Tide have allowed just 688 rushing yards through 10 games. Griffith has made 169 extra points in his career, three shy of Jeremy Shelley’s school mark of 172 set from 2009 to 2012. Hurts’ 447 yards of total offense against Mississippi State rank third in program history behind the 484 Blake Sims had in a 42-21 win over Florida two years ago and the 457 Scott Hunter had in a 49-26 loss to Auburn in 1969.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.