STARKVILLE, Miss. – All the talk about No. 7 LSU having a letdown game against an unheralded and winless Mississippi State went for naught early Saturday night, as the Tigers dominated both sides of the ball in a convincing 41-6 win in front of 45, 835 fans at Scott Field.
The win gives LSU (5-0, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) its best start since 1973 heading into the first bye week of the year. The Tigers started the ’73 season 9-0 before losing the final three games.
“You’ve got to give something to the players for going 5-0 for the first time in a long time around here,” said LSU coach Nick Saban. “We’ve got some players knicked up, so this certainly is a good time for a bye week.”
LSU let the air out of the Bulldogs’ sails when defensive end Melvin Oliver recovered a fumble inside the red zone just as MSU was primed to score.
Quarterback Matt Mauck took advantage of State’s offensive inefficiency later in the quarter, leading the Tigers down the field and Shyrone Carey’s one-yard plunge into the endzone gave the team a 7-0 lead.
Mauck, who finished 12-of-19 for 171 yards and a touchdown, said the offense had better rhythm, and overall the team played hungry and proved it could be one of the country’s elite teams.
“It was really important for us to come out and put to sleep some of the talk about LSU not coming out after a big win,” Mauck said. “We realize it was one game and we have a whole season to go.”
LSU put the finishing touches on the Bulldogs early in the third quarter after Travis Daniels recovered an apparent fumble by MSU running back McKinley Scott.
Mauck found wideout Devery Henderson for a 36-yard touchdown pass on the next play. Henderson caught seven passes for 114 yards in the game after having only two catches last week, and has nearly equaled his total number of catches from last season.
“Devery is a guy we’d like for him to ramp it up just a notch,” Saban said. “He’s made some big plays for us, he made some tonight and we’re going to continue to try and get him involved.”
Michael Clayton, who had three receptions for 31 yards, said the team came into the game with a lot of focus and determination.
“We wanted to come in here and dominate for the whole game,” Clayton said. “This is the most important game we’ve played so far because (Mississippi State) is in our division. We had to come out and respect their team because they have great athletes.”
With other big teams falling in the Top 25, including No. 14 Oregon and No. 3 USC, Saban said he was pleased with how the team responded after beating Georgia, and he thought they were better prepared for MSU than UGA.
“You always have a lot of worries about the things that happen in college football today, with people winning big games then going out and dying the next week like Oregon did today,” Saban said.
LSU never let Mississippi State (0-4, 0-1 SEC) consider an upset by the second quarter, pouring on 17 points, including Daniels’ 48-yard interception return for a touchdown that gave the Tigers a comfortable 24-0 halftime lead.
“It was really important that we got turnovers in the first half. We had three that led to 21 points,” Saban said. “There’s some things we can improve on, but overall the team played well.”
The Bulldogs lone score came with 10:12 left in the game when Kevin Fant hit Justin Jenkins for a 15-yard touchdown, and it was the first points scored against LSU in Starkville since 1999. Fant was 19-of-30 for 191 yards passing.
“We knew that they (MSU) weren’t going to give up,” Clayton said. “It was a must for us to come out and dominate in the second half.”
Mississippi State coach Jackie Sherrill said turnovers hurt the team and playing behind against the Tigers was too much to overcome.
“You just cannot get behind in a game like this,” Sherrill said. “You get away from your game plan when that happens. You don’t want to be one dimensional with a team like LSU. At the beginning of the game we moved the ball, but then we became one dimensional.”