Cowbell Corner Crystal Ball: Predicting Arkansas-Mississippi State

The Bulldogs will try to move to 2-0 this season when they play the Razorbacks on Saturday

For the very first time, the Air Raid gets to try out its new home launching pad. New head coach Mike Leach and his high-octane offensive style leads Mississippi State into Davis Wade Stadium for the home opener today against Arkansas as the Bulldogs look to move to 2-0 following last week's upset of defending-national-champion LSU. How will it all play out? Let's gaze back into the Cowbell Corner Crystal Ball – which isn't too reliable by the way after last week predicting a two-touchdown loss at LSU. Nonetheless, let's try it again.

In the grand scheme of things, the winner of today's affair probably depends upon the answer to these four questions: 

1. Can the Bulldogs avoid a letdown after beating LSU?
2. Can Arkansas control the clock?
3. Can the MSU defense be solid once again?
4. After setting the SEC single-game passing yardage record a week ago, will K.J. Costello provide anything close to an encore for Mississippi State?

Let's quickly run down that list shall we?

Can the Bulldogs avoid a letdown? It's always a concern on the heels of a big win like Mississippi State had a week ago that a team will start feeling a little too good about itself. That could especially be the case when going from the LSU win into a game against an Arkansas team almost everyone expects to sit in the cellar of the Southeastern Conference Western Division when this season is done. Truth be told, there's no way prior to kickoff to accurately measure whether or not this will impact MSU. But if the Bulldogs come out today and have a bunch of false starts, mental mistakes or just look lazy in any way, perhaps it could be a classic case of overlooking an opponent. It bears mentioning that with what we've seen out of Leach and this coaching staff early on, it'd be pretty shocking if State didn't come out ready to go.

Can Arkansas control the clock? Keeping the ball out of Mississippi State quarterback K.J. Costello's hands should be the goal for Arkansas today. The more chances the Bulldog Air Raid gets, well, the more yardage and points State will rack up. When all was said and done last week, the Razorbacks weren't able to do this against Georgia (Georgia won 37-10). Arkansas had the football for 24:14 to Georgia's 35:46. The Razorbacks were only 3-for-14 on third-down conversions. If they do anything similar to that today, MSU is likely to run away with this one.

Can the MSU defense do it again? Expectations weren't exactly high for the Mississippi State defense going into the season opener last weekend, but the Bulldogs went out in Baton Rouge and had an incredibly respectably showing. Was it perfect? No. But was it better than most thought possible? Absolutely. The State defense picked off a couple of passes, sacked LSU seven times, got several key stops and was just generally pretty strong. If MSU gets that type of defense all year, the ceiling for this Bulldog team is much higher than most originally thought when the season began. And if it's at that level today, it's another building block towards a convincing State win.

Will Costello provide anything close to an encore? Here's a prediction for you that's really out there on a limb...If K.J. Costello throws for 623 yards again today, Mississippi State will win again. Look, it's unreasonable to expect Costello to repeat last week's showing, but if he's even remotely close, that'll probably be plenty today. Maybe the key line to look at today for Costello though will be the turnover column. He threw a pair of interceptions and lost two fumbles at LSU. It didn't cost the Bulldogs last week, but make no mistake, one of the easiest ways to let an underdog like Arkansas have some life is to give them a few turnovers.

The guess here is that Mississippi State is ready for the challenge today. The Bulldogs are the most talented of the two teams and on the heels of the momentum-building win last week, conversations with players and coaches this week have indicated not only did the LSU win make the Bulldogs 1-0, it provided enough film of mistakes for everyone to look at and patch some holes. It should be expected that the Air Raid and the Bulldogs will probably hit a speed bump or two or three at some point this year. Here's guessing that doesn't happen today and MSU wins big.

Cowbell Corner Predicition: Mississippi State 52, Arkansas 24

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