Mississippi State’s 2025 Dream Season: Realistic hopes and bold goals

SEC Media Days may be over, but talkin’ season is still going strong.

There are 41 days left until Mississippi State takes to the field in Hattiesburg, Miss. to welcome Southern Miss first-year coach Charles Huff Jr. to the Magnolia State. Only then will talkin’ season come to its end.

So, all of us will keep talking with the hope and optimism that surrounds every team before a new season begins. Some talk with be realistic, other talk will be of things that only happen in dreams (or in EA College Football 26).

For now, let’s combine the two. What’s the realistic, dream season for Mississippi State in 2025?

Any of us can start a Mississippi State dynasty in the video game, go undefeated and win a national championship (just the difficulty to freshman). But that’s not real life.

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Realistically, in this writer’s opinion, the ultimate dream season for Mississippi State is to become bowl eligible. The “realistic” dream season is to come up just short of that mark.

The Bulldogs have three games they should win against Southern Miss, Alcorn State and Northern Illinois. For this exercise, we’ll assume the Bulldogs learned their lesson against Toledo last season and won’t lose to a Group of 5 school again.

That leaves Mississippi State with nine games against Arizona State and its slate of SEC games. The Bulldogs would need to win three of those games to become bowl eligible.

I’ve already covered what the most-winnable SEC games for Mississippi State are here, and (spoiler alert) if Mississippi State does win any of those games, it’ll be an upset. My thoughts on that hasn’t changed – Arkansas and Missouri are the most winnable SEC games for Mississippi State.

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For an upset to happen and the Bulldogs have their dream season, there’ll need to be some specific on-field accomplishments, like these:

Blake Shapen stays healthy

Shapen has a history of injuries, which he acknowledged at SEC Media Days last week.

"For me, just staying healthy. That's the first thing that comes to mind," Shapen said. "I want to be able to play a full season of college football. I haven't been able to do that since like 2022, so that's the biggest goal for me."

Yes, quarterbacks get too much credit and too much blame for their team’s successes. But not by much. We can’t say for sure Shapen would’ve done better than what Michael Van Buren did last season, but the odds would’ve been much better.

Keeping Shapen healthy for all 12 games has to be a priority. If he plays like he did in his limited action last season, throws for around 3,500 yards, limits interceptions to less than 10 and the Bulldogs could have their dream season.

Bigger defensive line pays off

Last season, Mississippi State was severely out-sized by opposing offensive lines, most notably against Arizona State when the Sun Devils’ had an average weight 30 lbs. more than Mississippi State’s defensive line.

That won’t be the case this year.

Mississippi State worked the transfer portal to bring in bigger bodies for its defensive line and shouldn’t be out-sized like that again. A bigger defensive line will eat up more space, limiting the running lanes and allow the Bulldogs’ linebackers to fill the gaps.

End season with net rushing yards near 2,000 yards

The Bulldogs ended last season with 1,655 net rushing yards (1,991 total yards gained without accounting for yards lost, which we’ll get to).

The running back position is one of Mississippi State’s unquestioned strengths. Davon Booth led the Bulldogs with 769 net yards last season and Xavier Gayen had 14.2 yards per carry. Add in transfer Fluff Bothwell, who had 832 rushing yards, 7.5 ypc and 13 touchdowns last season with South Alabama, it’s not a crazy prediction that Mississippi State will rely on its ground game.

But to achieve the goal stated above, the Bulldogs have to limit sacks. In college football, yards lost on quarterback sacks count against that player and their team’s rushing yards. That’s how Michael Van Buren ended 2024 with a minus-12 net rushing total (gained 169 yards, lost 181 yards).

The logic of this is that if Mississippi State’s net rushing yard total is near or above 2,000 yards then there will have been less sacks, which in turn leads to a better passing game and you can see where this headed (more wins).

Isaac Smith isn’t leading the nation in tackles

This is not a knock against Smith or a slight or anything else. Smith is a great player and Mississippi State should count its blessings he’s still in Starkville. He had 127 tackles last season and an average of 11.5 per game, which was fourth-most in the nation.

But you don’t want your safety leading the nation in tackles.

The four players with a higher tackles per game average were all linebackers and only one other defensive back ranked in the top 10 last season (Nick Anderson, Wake Forest). Of the top 20 players in that category, all but four were linebackers. Here’s how those four defensive backs’ defenses ended last season (using total defense statical ranking):

Mississippi State: 125
Wake Forest: 117
Utah State: 129
Jacksonville State: 93

Feel free to make your own deductions.

Conclusion

A realistic dream season for Mississippi State will need much more than those four things above. They'll definitely be a big help, but other players/position groups will have to play above expectations, too. The Bulldogs could also use a lot of luck.

For me, Mississippi State winning five games is the dream season. Maybe the Bulldogs keep some of the other games close. Maybe they don't. But with the Bulldogs' schedule and everything else, five wins seems to be the realistic dream season.