Mississippi State Football Countdown: Optimism for Bulldogs' Season Boils Down to One Main Thing

The Bulldogs are looking to have a breakthrough season in Mike Leach's third year as the program's head coach.

There are high hopes surrounding Mississippi State football heading into the 2022 season.

The first two years of the Mike Leach era featured plenty of young players with some room to grow. Now, many of those student-athletes have acquired experience and are looking to have breakthrough seasons. Despite having the toughest schedule in the nation, the Bulldogs look solid on both sides of the ball and have the potential to shock the nation.

One common trend has followed Leach wherever he has gone in the past: steady improvement. The head coach's past has shown that his teams tend to make a big jump after two or three seasons under him, and he always makes a program better than it was when he found it... even if it isn't an instantaneous fix.

Leach's first major head coaching stint was with the Texas Tech Red Raiders in 2000. As a first-year coach, he led the program to a 7-6 overall record. Texas Tech finished the next year at 7-5 before jumping to 9-5 in Leach's third year with the team. The team never won less than eight games a season from there out, and it even peaked at 11-2 in 2008.

Much of the same happened when Leach took the job at Washington State. He inherited the team from four-year head coach Paul Wulff, who went 9-40 with the Cougars. The first few years were difficult for Leach, but he eventually saw a breakthrough. Washington State went 3-9 in 2013 but turned it around completely by posting a 9-4 overall record the very next season. The Cougars won eight games in each of the following three seasons before slipping some to 6-7 in Leach's final year with the program.

There is proof that Leach can build college programs up to success when given enough time to do so. Mississippi State went 4-7 in 2020 and improved to 7-6 in 2021 -- there is no reason why to believe that another big jump can't happen. There will still be losses, but perhaps not as many, especially since the Bulldogs have an arguably more talented roster than the majority of the other rosters in Leach's past. 

The third year of Leach's time at Mississippi State begins in just one day. Anything can happen, but it certainly looks like this season is shaping up to be a huge improvement from years past.