Down Seven, Then Unstoppable
Fourth quarter. Down seven. Not exactly where a team chasing history wants to be. Mississippi State didn’t blink. The Bulldogs scored 14 unanswered points in the final period to beat No. 19 Missouri 31-24, a win that pushed Jeff Lebby’s team to 4-0 for the first time since 1944-45.
Kamario Taylor threw for 360 yards on 27-of-38 passing with three touchdowns, spreading the ball around all night. Sanfrisco Magee caught two of those scores for 76 yards, and Anthony Evans III added 114 receiving yards, including a 48-yard grab that kept drives alive when Missouri’s defense tightened.
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Bothwell Ties It, Magee Wins It
Mississippi State jumped out 14-0 in the first quarter before Missouri clawed all the way back and took a seven-point lead into the fourth. That’s when Fluff Bothwell, who finished with 177 total yards and two scores, punched in a 4-yard touchdown run with 7:09 left to tie the game at 24. Taylor then found Magee for a 24-yard go-ahead score with 3:57 remaining, and this time the lead held.
Missouri didn’t go quietly. Austin Simmons threw for 295 yards and three touchdowns, and Cayden Lee caught two of them for 156 yards. Daeden Hopkins wreaked havoc off the edge with 3.5 sacks. None of it was enough. Mississippi State’s defense stiffened exactly when it needed to, stopping all four of Missouri’s fourth-quarter possessions, including a batted-down Hail Mary on the final play.
A Start Nobody Saw Coming
Four wins, two of them in SEC play, and Lebby has already topped his combined conference win total from his first two seasons in Starkville. That context matters. Mississippi State was picked to finish in the bottom half of the SEC West this preseason, and here it sits unbeaten with a ranked scalp on the resume. Missouri, meanwhile, drops to a record that will sting more with each passing week, done in by a defense that couldn’t get one more stop when the game was there to be won.
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