Mississippi State Will Honor Diamond Dawgs on Saturday at Homecoming Football Game
MSU's homecoming game against the Kentucky Wildcats will take time to honor the 2021 National Champion Mississippi State Baseball Team in many ways.
The Bulldogs will be receiving their national championship rings during the homecoming football game. This has been a long time coming for the program-- they won the school's first national championship four months ago after decades of falling short of winning it all.
The team has been to the College World Series 12 times in history and has made three consecutive trips to Omaha over the past three seasons.
Many members of the national championship team are on the roster again this year, but there will be a few recently-drafted Bulldogs making their return to Starkville this weekend to take part in the celebration. Tanner Allen, Rowdey Jordan and Will Bednar were all members of the 2021 College World Series tournament team who were selected in the MLB draft over the summer. Bednar, who was also named the CWS Most Outstanding Player, was taken in the first round of the draft by the San Francisco Giants. Allen and Jordan were selected in later rounds by the Miami Marlins and New York Mets, respectively.
State's football team is also doing their part to honor the defending national champs.
This week, a video featuring star pitcher Landon Sims was posted to the Mississippi State Football Twitter account. The end of the video featured a quick clip of the team's new helmets for the game, which are maroon with the M over S baseball logo with white on the sides. While most Bulldogs fans who saw the video were excited about the new helmets, some were outraged at the thought of the sacred baseball logo being used across other sports.
However, it looks like this will be a one-time occurrence that is strictly part of the big celebration, and there will be no permanent changes to any logos.
The ring presentation will likely be the conclusion of the celebrations that have occurred since the end of June, but it will be one of the most monumental moments in the history of MSU athletics.