All-American honor latest sign progress being made at Mississippi State

Punter Ethan Pulliam was the latest Bulldog to pick up a postseason award, joining four others a year after only Bulldog won postseason honors.

Mississippi State Punter Ethan Pulliam (#88) during the game between the Alcorn State Braves and the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field in Starkville, MS. | Mississippi State Athletics

Anyone looking for signs of improvement with Mississippi State’s football program can look at the win-loss record.

The Bulldogs won three more games in 2025 than they did in 2024. But there are other signs.

For instance, the only postseason awards last season for Mississippi State was safety Isaac Smith being named to the All-SEC team. This season, there’s a lot more hardware being shipped to Starkville.

The latest is the first All-American honor for a Mississippi State player under Jeff Lebby.

Punter Ethan Pulliam was named to The Sporting News 2025 College Football All-America Second Team on Wednesday.

Despite splitting reps with Nathan Tiyce during the season, Pulliam earned his first postseason honor. Pulliam had 40 punts of 1,874 yards with an average of 46.9 yards per punt. That average would’ve been a new program record (currently held by Andy Russ at 46.5) if the Bulldogs weren’t playing the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

His longest punt of the season was 67 yards and had 16 travel at least 50 yards. He also had 10 punts land inside the 20-yard line.

More questions than answers

Personally, I don’t like to question coach’s decisions. For one, they know more about their teams than I do (and you, too). It’s why I was hesitant to join the chorus calling for Kamario Taylor to start at quarterback earlier.

From my viewpoint, we had a very small sample size of Taylor to see. Lebby has probably spent a hundred hours watching Taylor in practice. So, there had to be a reason, right?

One thing I never understood was why Pulliam was splitting time with Tiyce. From the first games it was clear Pulliam was the better punter.

But Tiyce kept getting opportunities even after shanking a couple of punts early in the season.

Would having Pulliam handle all of the punting duties changed any results? Probably not, but Pulliam earning All-American honors makes the decision to split reps all the more confusing.

Here’s a full list of the postseason honors and awards won by Mississippi State players, so far, this season:

2025 Post Season Honors

Brenen Thompson

AP All-SEC (Second Team)
PFSN All-SEC (Second Team)
Coaches' All-SEC (Third Team)

Kelley Jones

PFSN All-SEC (First Team)
Coaches' All-SEC (Third Team)

Isaac Smith

PFSN All-American (Third Team)
PFSN All-SEC (Second Team)

Tyler Lockhart

Coaches' Freshman All-SEC Team

Ethan Pulliam

Sporting News All-American (Second Team)