No. 5 Georgia visits a much-improved Mississippi State in an all-Bulldog affair

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — Georgia and Mississippi State have a Bulldog mascot in common — and not much else.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s No. 5 Bulldogs (7-1, 5-1 SEC) have had four consecutive 10-win seasons and seven of eight. He’s brought home two national championships and three Southeastern Conference titles during his tenure.

Jeff Lebby’s Mississippi State Bulldogs (5-4, 1-4) have won one SEC game in two seasons and have spent the last couple years dwelling near the bottom of the league standings.

The good news for MSU fans is that their team has shown considerable signs of progress, something Smart was quick to note as Georgia prepared to visit Starkville on Saturday.

“No. 1, it shows hard work pays off,” Smart said. “They’ve continued to work hard. They’ve stayed true to themselves. ... They’ve been in every game. They’ve had several games they should’ve won, could’ve won, but didn’t.

“Obviously it didn’t slow them down because every game they’ve been in," Smart continued. "They score a ton of points. They’re a hard team to beat. It shows you what kind of competitive character they’ve got that they’ve sustained that in every game regardless of the outcome.”

After MSU went 2-10 — including 0-8 in SEC play — during Lebby's first season in 2024, his Bulldogs are one win away from bowl eligibility this season. MSU went to overtime in games against Tennessee and Texas and were driving for a potential game winning field goal at Florida when Blake Shapen threw an interception.

Undaunted, Lebby’s team pulled out a 38-35 comeback victory over Arkansas in Fayetteville last week.

“It is just the consistency in how we go about doing what we do every single day — not letting a result dictate how we interact, how we coach, what the expectation is and understanding we have the ability to control how we prepare and how we play,” Lebby said. “Young people need to know what they’re getting before they walk into the double doors. I think that’s one of the most important things about leadership. We’re fighting like heck to do that every day.”

Although UGA entered the first College Football Playoff Rankings at No. 5 this week, the team isn’t playing up to Smart’s standard.

UGA beat Tennessee, Mississippi and Florida by a score each, lost to Alabama 24-21 and knocked off Kentucky and Auburn 35-14 and 20-10, respectively.

To Smart, those are the results of a team less dominant than some he's coached in recent seasons. And he suggested this week that the difference has more to do with attitude than talent.

“If you want to dominate someone, you don’t look and check and see what the score is halfway through,” Smart said. “The objective is to dominate them, and there’s no scoreboard when you start talking about dominating somebody. You look at it at the end of the day and see if you did. We haven’t done that very often in terms of dominating the way we want to, but we’ll continue to try.”

Davis Wade Stadium, with its cowbell-clanging fans, has long been a challenging atmosphere for opponents, but after all the recent losing and corresponding decline in season ticket sales, there are still seats to be had.

That's left openings for visiting fans. When the Volunteers visited, MSU’s “white out” was laced with conspicuous orange streaks on the stadium’s East side, sparking outrage from those home fans who've kept showing up.

This week, Lebby scooped up 500 tickets to give out to MSU fans. The coach and several players planned on delivering the tickets in the hands of student organizations and military personnel.

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