More Cowbell? Memphis WIll Have Plenty as Bulldog Fans Pack Liberty Bowl

My old high school football coach was fond of saying he couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken... excrement, but there's a reason Sylvester Croom was named SEC coach of the year: he can come close. Not long ago, like a couple of months actually, the only time we'd post about Mississippi State here at FanHouse would be to tally their blowout losses, speculate on the next Crooming, or mention in passing that their next opponent could take the day off. Things change quickly. In Sylvester Croom's fourth season, State ended up being a solid football team on their good days and tough out at worst (OK, at worst they were picked off six times and blown out by LSU, but after that).

The Bulldogs' reward for putting together a pretty good year is a trip a couple hundred miles north to Memphis to play Central Florida in the Liberty Bowl. Many SEC teams see the Liberty as just a little better than the Independence Bowl in Shreveport and overall a pretty "meh" consolation prize. But for MSU fans who haven't seen their boys in a bowl game since 2000 and haven't even won more than three games in a season over the last six years, this trip to Memphis might as well be the Sugar Bowl. State fans have bought more than 30,000 tickets to the game, and many more than that will probably show up in Memphis on Dec. 29. State AD Larry Templeton says Bulldog fans "now look forward to coloring the city of Memphis maroon." Good, Memphis could use a fresh coat of paint.

What the Bulldog faithful might find when the game kicks off, however, could be something completely different than what they expect. Central Florida features the nation's leading rusher in junior Kevin Smith (188 yards/game, 29 TDs), while State gives up a middle-of-the-road 159 yards rushing per game. MSU also gave up over 4.5 yards/carry in games against Auburn, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Arkansas. State's ability to stop UCF's running game could be the main factor in how this bowl game turns out.