Five coaches, eight wins: Mississippi State’s wild season-opener streak

Eight straight season-opening wins. Five different coaches. Mississippi State’s streak faces a new test against Southern Miss in 2025.

Mississippi State Bulldogs head coach Jeff Lebby reacts during the first quarter of the game against the Eastern Kentucky Colonels at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field. | Matt Bush-Imagn Images

Here’s a fun stat for you. Mississippi State is 5-0 in season-opening games this decade.

And, if you go back further, the Bulldogs have won their last eight season-opening games. The last time they lost the first game of a season was in 2016 when South Alabama won 21-20.

That 8-0 streak does include plenty of FCS teams, but it also includes a 44-34 win against No. 6 LSU in Mike Leach’s first game at Mississippi State. So, it’s not an unimpressive streak.

What may make it more impressive is that Mississippi State has done it with five different head coaches. Dan Mullen beat Charleston Southern in his final season in Starkville, Joe Moorhead beat Stephen F. Austin and Louisiana in his two seasons, Mike Leach beat LSU, Louisiana Tech and Memphis, Zac Arnett beat Southeastern Louisiana in his lone season and Jeff Lebby began his head coaching career with a 56-7 win against Eastern Kentucky.

ICYMI: Will Mississippi State go bowling in 2025? Maybe.

Having five different head coaches in eight seasons does raise the difficulty level of accomplishing an 8-0 streak in season-opening games. But it also puts a gigantic spotlight on why Lebby inherited a program that was lacking in several areas (and that’s being nice) and the program’s first winless SEC season in more than 20 years.

Changing coaches that frequent is disastrous for recruiting and with the transfer portal, any good players on the team are likely to leave when there’s a coaching change. What the Mississippi State football program needs is consistency and, for now, it has that.

Because of the situation he inherited, Lebby is going to get plenty of time to build a winning program. But in today’s world, fans live by one of my favorite movie quotes of all time:

"I hear patience is a virtue, but I’ve never been able to wait to see if it’s true or not."

Jim Beckwell, The Harder They Fall

Patience isn’t something most sports fans have. Some do, but a lot don’t.

That’s why I think it’s important for Mississippi State, and Lebby, to win Saturday. Forget all the talk about starting 1-0. It’s true talk, but most of that talk is about this season.

Winning Saturday is important not just for this season, but for future seasons. It’d be a win against an instate opponent that, should it win, will not let the Bulldogs forget about it.

A win is also a sign that things are moving in the right direction. Southern Miss is going to be a lot better than Eastern Kentucky, or Southeastern Louisiana, or Charleston Southern or Stephen F. Austin was when the Bulldogs played them.

Last season, beating Eastern Kentucky in the opener hid some major flaws on Mississippi State’s roster that got exposed the following week against Arizona State.

Hiding those flaws this time won’t be as easy and a win will help in reassuring fans those flaws have been fixed.