Kamario Taylor has gone from intriguing to unavoidable, and Mississippi State suddenly looks like the kind of team nobody in the SEC wants to see right now.
Taylor shredded South Carolina for 251 passing yards and four touchdowns in Saturday’s 41-34 road win, and no player has climbed faster in the Heisman race over the past two weeks. He wasn’t just the best player on the field; he was the engine behind a second-half surge that flipped a 16-0 hole into Mississippi State’s loudest statement yet.
The Bulldogs had dropped 15 of their previous 16 SEC games before this season, which made Jeff Lebby’s early turnaround easy to treat with caution. Not anymore.
Mississippi State didn’t just beat South Carolina. It took over the game after falling behind early in the second quarter, then used fast-paced offense and key defensive stops to bury a Gamecocks team that entered with back-to-back blowout wins of its own.
Taylor was at the center of everything. He’s playing like a quarterback with no fear and no hesitation, the kind of talent who gives Lebby exactly what he needs: arm strength, playmaking and the willingness to attack again after mistakes. That combination is turning Mississippi State into a real problem.
The Bulldogs started 4-0 last year and then went winless in SEC play. This version feels different. With Taylor driving the offense, that collapse doesn’t look like the script this team is following again.
And now comes the hard part.
Mississippi State’s next five games are a brutal run through nationally ranked SEC opponents, beginning next week in Starkville against Missouri. The stretch includes No.
20 Missouri on Sept. 26, No.
10 Alabama on Oct. 3, a trip to No. 7 LSU on Oct.
17, No. 24 Oklahoma on Oct. 24 and a visit to No.
1 Texas on Oct. 31.
That kind of schedule can expose a team fast. It can also launch one into the national conversation if it survives. Mississippi State has seen this sort of grind before, during its run to No. 1 in 2014, when it played and beat three straight top-10 teams.
After that, the Bulldogs return home for Vanderbilt, Auburn and Tennessee Tech in November before closing with the Egg Bowl against a red-hot Ole Miss program.
If Mississippi State reaches nine wins, and several of those come against ranked teams, the Bulldogs’ strength of schedule could put them squarely in the playoff conversation late in the season.
Taylor isn’t the only reason this team has teeth, either. Fluff Bothwell ran for 115 yards against South Carolina, four different receivers caught touchdown passes and Zach Arnett’s defense nearly shut out the Gamecocks in the second half.
There were clues last season that Mississippi State was closer than its SEC record suggested. The Bulldogs led nationally ranked Tennessee and Texas in the fourth quarter at home before losing both in overtime. Then Taylor took over for his first start against Ole Miss last November, rushed for 173 yards and two touchdowns in that loss, and followed that with more than 300 yards of total offense in a bowl loss to Wake Forest.
Now he’s picked up right where he left off.
Whether Mississippi State has the depth to stay in the SEC Championship picture will be answered over the next several weeks. But the Bulldogs don’t need to get to Atlanta to shake up the playoff race.
They already look built to wreck somebody else’s season.
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