Three Predictions For Mississippi State Football Ahead of the 2022 Season

Looking into three things that are very much on the table for Mississippi State in 2022.

Mississippi State football faces what may be the toughest schedule in the nation heading into the upcoming season.

While the Bulldogs aren't receiving a ton of hype at this time -- something that's become pretty standard over the years -- this is a team that is poised to accomplish great things and demand attention this fall, even if they are frequently skipped over by the national media.

Here's a look into three things that could take shape for the Bulldogs in 2022:

1. Will Rogers finishes the season as one of the top-10 FBS quarterbacks.

Rogers has flown under the radar for quite some time now -- and rightfully so as he's had to take the time to really come into his own. The Bulldogs had some offensive struggles at the beginning of the season and Rogers was frequently criticized for holding the ball too long. There were several plays in which he should have let it go earlier that resulted in him having no choice but to dump it off the the running back -- and by that time, the defense was more often than not plenty prepared for it and met the pass-catcher abruptly.

But that wasn't so much the case as the season went on. It's become clear just watching Rogers in the spring that the game has slowed down for him and began to do so in the back half of the season. Rogers' decision-making, overall accuracy, release time and ball placement all significantly improved as he broke multiple school and conference records, including the SEC single-game completion rate record (92.3% against Kentucky).

After finishing out the season with a 73.9% completion rate, 4,739 passing yards, 36 touchdowns and nine interceptions, the junior has quickly become renowned as one of the most accurate passers active in CFB and could take the sport by storm in 2022.

2. The Bulldogs win nine games or more.

This is a team that showed the makings of something special in 2021 if one looks deeper into the season than just the final overall record -- and to go from 7-6 to 3-7 with a team that's still young and only in its second year of adjusting to a completely new system on both sides of the ball is nothing to scoff at.

While 7-6 may look lackluster at first glance just generally speaking, it's important to note that three of the Bulldogs' losses were by three points or less and some of this had to do with egregious officiating errors that could have seen the Bulldogs finish with at least nine wins in 2021.

There's no doubt MSU faces stiff competition in the upcoming season, but the Bulldogs have shown potential and have the pieces in place on both sides to rise to the occasion. It's not out of the norm for MSU to enter the season doubted, and this is no exception -- but it's certainly something they can feed off of and use as motivation. 

3. The Air Raid stigma lessens in a big way.

Substantiated or not, there's been a negative narrative that has surrounded the Air Raid offense for years. It's one that is the notion that players at different positions -- particularly quarterback -- only put up good numbers because of the system that they're playing in. However, there's arguably no other type of offense that exists in football that demands more from its quarterback from an accuracy, pure passing, leadership and pre-snap responsibilities standpoint, solid offensive line play in a way that's not entirely traditional, better hands from its wideouts and more versatility from its running backs.

If Mississippi State can expound upon the flashes it showed last year and send more talented players on to the NFL to add to the likes of offensive lineman Charles Cross, a stigma that's already rightfully come into question a bit could continue to fade into the abyss.