There are two different stories wrapped into Saturday night in Starkville, and both of them are built around noise.
One is the football game itself: No. 19 Missouri at No.
24 Mississippi State, a 6:45 p.m. CT kickoff at Davis Wade Stadium on SEC Network.
The other is Mississippi State’s push to set a world record for the most people ringing cowbells at once, an attempt that will unfold during the game and could turn an already loud stadium into something even more chaotic.
Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz didn’t sound rattled by the setup. He sounded amused by it.
"They have a tremendous fanbase," Drinkwitz said this week. "It's going to be a tough place to play. I anticipate it being sold-out."
Davis Wade Stadium holds 61,337, which means there could be a whole lot of metal clanging all over the place. Drinkwitz, naturally, leaned into the joke.
"If they bring out Will Ferrell, it'll be well worth it," Drinkwitz joked, referencing the excellent Saturday Night Live skit starring Ferrell and Christopher Walken and four others playing '(Don't Fear) The Reaper' by Blue Öyster Cult.
"If they don't, Zac Selmon, the AD - if Zac doesn't have Will Ferrell on a private plane and have him yell about more cowbell when they start ringing them, he missed a golden opportunity," Drinkwitz continued. "I might need to text him that."
Mississippi State’s cowbell tradition has been part of the program for generations, even if the exact start of it is fuzzy. The source of the custom goes back to the 1930s and 1940s, when a cow wandered onto the field during a home game against Ole Miss and Mississippi State won big.
Students started bringing cows to games after that, then shifted to cowbells when cows became discouraged. Two professors later encouraged students to weld handles onto the bells, and by the 1960s the cowbell was described by the school as "the most resounding symbol of Mississippi State University."
The SEC tried to shut down artificial noisemakers in 1974, but cowbells eventually got their own lane. In 2010, the league allowed Mississippi State fans to ring them before the game, during timeouts, at halftime and after touchdowns.
After a one-year test, the Bulldogs got the full approval, as long as fans followed the rules. They have been doing it ever since, and opposing teams know exactly what they’re walking into.
Missouri left tackle Cayden Green called the sound loud and, in his words, "pretty cool."
"They're pretty loud, but I actually think it's pretty cool," Green said. "It makes the stadium a lot louder.
It'll be exciting to play on the road there. I know how rockin' that place is going to be because they're good this year.
I'm exited."
Cayden Lee, who transferred from Ole Miss this offseason, has already seen it up close.
"The cowbells don't stop, from the first play to the last play," Lee said. "I've played there two times. It's a hard place to play."
Austin Simmons, another Ole Miss transfer now at Missouri, was a little less fond of the sound.
"Honestly, (the cowbells) grow to be annoying," Simmons said. "I hate hearing this whole thing about the cowbells. But it'll be pretty exciting walking into this environment."
And yes, Mississippi State has already done this once before. In 2015, the MSU Student Association organized an official Guinness World Record attempt for the most people ringing cowbells at the same time.
The previous mark was 640. Mississippi State blew past it with 5,748 simultaneous cowbell ringers during a pep rally before its home game against LSU on Sept.
10, 2015. That record still stands.
Now the Bulldogs are trying again. Last year, the Milwaukee Admirals, a minor league hockey team affiliated with the Nashville Predators, posted an unofficial mark of 6,768 cowbell ringers on Feb. 28, 2025, during a 5-4 overtime loss to the Iowa Wild. That prompted Mississippi State’s student association to make another run, this time tied to the Missouri game.
Elite World Records will be in Starkville to document the attempt, even though Guinness won’t be there. The counting starts when the gates open and runs through kickoff, with a licensed CPA auditing the results.
The official record attempt itself will happen at the two-minute timeout before halftime. According to Steve Robertson of Gene’s Page on the 247Sports Network, "Any cowbells who arrive (after halftime) will be heard," but not counted.
For Missouri, the answer has been simple: get ready for the racket by making some of their own.
Nick Rodriguez, the Tigers’ starting weakside linebacker and team captain, said the staff has been ringing cowbells around practice all week to help the team get used to the sound.
"Just about every staff member we've got," Rodriguez said. "They're everywhere.
(Drinkwitz) gave everybody on staff a cowbell. We have cowbells, people walking around with cowbells, ringing them in our ears.
"You can't replicate it. It's a big stadium with a lot of fans.
They're going to try to set the record. That's cool.
Good. We're excited.
It's a great opportunity to go in there and have fun with the game. I love going into hostile environments."
Missouri has handled Mississippi State just fine in recent years, winning the last two meetings and holding a 4-2 edge in the series. The Tigers beat the Bulldogs 49-27 in Columbia last year and 39-20 in Starkville the year before. But Saturday’s noise level figures to be a different kind of test.
Chris Graves Jr., Missouri’s starting cornerback, summed up the approach in a single line.
"You don't have to listen to it if you silence it," Graves said. "That's my mentality."
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