Our EA CFB 26 simulation offers a bold prediction for Bulldogs vs. Vols

Mississippi State against Tennessee gets video game treatment that produced a wild finish you’ll want to see

Mississippi State Bulldogs cheer team celebrates after a touchdown during the first half against the Alcorn State Braves at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field. | Wesley Hale-Imagn Images

STARKVILLE, Miss. — Spoiler alert: Tennessee fans will not like this.

Actually, that’s probably not accurate. I imagine most of the orange-clad fans reading this will dismiss it as non-sense.

Few will believe this was the first and only simulation we ran and even fewer will believe the real-life game will play out anywhere close to this.

But our series of EA College Football 26 simulations of Mississippi State’s games has gone 4-0 in predicting the victor each week.

Yes, that includes the Arizona State upset.

Were those simulations perfect predictors for how each game unfolded? No, although the ones against Southern Miss and Northern Illinois were close.

In both of those games, the Golden Eagles and Huskies kept things close for most of the first half before Mississippi State pulled away in the second half.

That’s what happened in the real life games, too.

Will that happen this week? Who knows, right? They play the game for a reason.

If Saturday plays out like our simulation, expect there to be a lot of volunteers to submit complaints about the cowbells. (Note: pun fully intended.)

I’ve never seen a fanbase complain more about this than y’all LMAOOOOO

— Jeff Le🅱️🅱️y’s 🅱️urner™️ (@Lebby_Burner) September 24, 2025

You can see what happens in our simulation of Tennessee at Mississippi State below and we’ll have some notes after it.

As always, we run this simulation on Heisman difficulty and no rosters or depth charts have been edited. We also set the game time as close to the real life scheduled time and give the game clear weather conditions. Neither team has a user controlling them and we only run this simulation once.

Video Game Summary

I imagine my thoughts watching this will be similar to the thoughts I’d have if that actually happens: Is this really happening?

The big moment in the simulation wasn’t Kyle Ferrie’s 57-yard field goal (which would be a new school record) nor was it his game-winning 30-yard field goal with six seconds left.

The game-changing moment came in the second quarter with the score tied 7-7. Joey Aguilar throws a deep pass downfield that’s intercepted at midfield by Dwight Lewis III.

Lewis returns the interception for a touchdown and those six points (plus the PAT) are what kept the Bulldogs ahead for much of the game.

It took away the Volunteers’ advantage of scoring points and the end of the first half and start of the second half.

It put the Bulldogs in a position where Ferrie would be trying for a game-winning field goal and not a game-tying one.

What can we learn from this?

Tennessee fans are very confident that their team will win Saturday, but the level-headed ones will admit the Bulldogs have a shot.

But this simulation shows how drastically different a game can be on one play.

Leading 14-7 instead of trailing 14-7 is an entirely different feeling and that’s all it would take for an upset to happen.