Mississippi State falls to upset-minded Kansas State

Mississippi State’s unblemished record took a hit on Saturday, as the Kansas State Wildcats came away victorious in their matchup with the Bulldogs.

State fell 31-24 to upset-minded K-State, who gained a measure of revenge after the Bulldogs came in and won in The Little Apple a season ago. Despite letting Kylin Hill do his thing again, the Wildcats will go home to Manhattan victorious, while State has a lot of recuperating to do.

State’s defense was an eyesore to say the least. They gave up 269 total yards, but also allowed 5.1 yards per play. They also allowed 12.3 yards per completion and 4.2 yards per carry. They were only able to collect one sack all day and just five TFL.

Skylar Thompson completed just 10 passes all day for only 123 yards, but did throw a touchdown pass to Dalton Schoen that helped bring K-State ahead of the Bulldogs late. Thompson didn’t carry the ball too much, only four carries for eight yards, but was still in good command all day under center. James Gilbert and Jordan Brown combined for 100 rushing yards on 22 carries, with Gilbert going for 5 on 17 carries while Brown racked up 41 on five.

Mississippi State quarterbacks Tommy Stevens and Garrett Shrader combined to go just 11-for-27 on the day. Shrader was just four-for-12 for 51 yards, while Stevens went 7-for-15 with a touchdown pass to Osirus Mitchell — which was a rather ridiculous catch — and two interceptions. Shrader made noise because of this absurd helicopter, which has to be one of the better effort plays we’ve seen in recent memory.

This loss certainly wasn’t a great one for Mississippi State. The defense looked sluggish at times and while the offense outgained K-State’s, it certainly seemed at times that they were just not able to corral the Wildcats. For their sake, they figure things out going forward. Because defensively, this one was hard to look at.