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This is the Derelictable College Football Top 25. This is exactly how the Top 25 will look at the end of the season. We swear. Today's entry: No. 21 Mississippi State.
You remember Mississippi State, the team that finished Rich Rodriguez's tenure at Michigan by embarrassing the Wolverines in the Gator Bowl. The 52-point outburst we all saw, however, was a great deviation from the mean of this Mississippi State team, which wound up averaging 29 points, good for 48th nationally.
The key to the offense is Chris Relf, the solid, but not yet spectacular senior quarterback, who showed in the Michigan game that he has serious potential to run a dynamic offense. Remember, last year was just the second for Relf and the Bulldogs under Dan Mullen, who is one of the top up-and-coming coaches in the country. And in that second year, he threw 13 touchdowns to one interception. He also rushed for six. That's incredible efficiency from the quarterback position. Now he's a senior in Year 3 with Mullen (the oft-cited "jump" year). If he makes that jump, the Bulldogs offense (which returns eight starters) could join the defense as a top 25 unit, and propel this team to contention in the ridiculously stacked SEC West.
As for the defense, which allowed 19.9 points a game last year -- 21st in the nation and, remarkably, third in the SEC -- seven players return, and they're at the front and back. The entire starting secondary is back, as are three of the four starting defensive linemen from a year ago. The Bulldogs will be replacing all of the linebackers in their 4-3 scheme, but with the experience in front of and behind them, that shouldn't be too big of an issue.
Why they could be lower: If Relf doesn't make that jump and the Bulldogs don't become a dangerous offense, they might struggle to win a lot of games in the SEC West. Everything points to that jump happening, but him just being efficient won't be enough on a team that's replacing all of its linebackers. Yes, the defense will still be good, but having a top-15 run defense again is going to be a tall task with all of those replacements in the front seven.
Why they could be higher: Relf, Relf, Relf. Noticing a theme here? Quarterbacks are the key at a lot of schools and on a lot of football teams, but here we have a guy that's proven he can keep the ship afloat and make the plays his team needs to be good. If his team's going to take the next step, Relf needs to seriously breakout and start putting up big numbers, not just solid and efficient ones. I'm not saying he has to be Mullens' next Tim Tebow, but if he can put up a 25-TD season in the air, Mississippi State has the team around him to be in the SEC conversation. Seriously.
Schedule: It's brutal. It's an SEC West schedule, so it's all about timing of games and where they're at. In Mississippi State's case, it gets LSU in a real tough spot -- five days after playing at Auburn -- although it is at home. The Bulldogs get Alabama a week after playing Tennessee-Martin, and that one's at home, as well. The Arkansas game is on the road, however, and the week after Alabama. Georgia and South Carolina, arguably the top two SEC East teams this year, are also on the schedule, but both come after relatively easy tests, and South Carolina is at home. I feel like this team could go 8-4 against this schedule and crack the top 25, but a three-loss regular season isn't out of the question. Then again, so is a five- or six-loss one.
