Mississippi State Football: 3 takeaways from home win over Arkansas

Mississippi State football looked to remain in the College Football Playoff rankings, and it likely did just that with a win over Arkansas.

It wasn’t pretty early on and if you look at just the offensive numbers, you wouldn’t think Mississippi State was in line to blow the Arkansas Razorbacks out, but the Bulldogs did just that, 55-6.

Mississippi State has had a rough season in the SEC after a hot start, but it took care of business against a hapless Arkansas team on Saturday. It was the win this team needed to stay in the College Football Playoff rankings and potentially even move up.

The Bulldogs will head into the final week of the season with a 7-4 record and a chance to win eight games, but there’s still plenty to play for.

What’d we learn from Mississippi State’s comfortable win?

3. Third-downs were the difference

You can talk all you want about Mississippi State’s run game being the difference, but it had to be the third-down offense as well as defense.

In fact, the Bulldogs converted more often than not on third down which led to multiple scores and the defense held the Razorbacks to a lackluster conversion percentage. That carried over to fourth down, too.

Mississippi State’s defense stepped up and held the Razorbacks to just 150 passing yards and 69 rushing yards, but it was that third-down stoppage that helped the Bulldogs shut the door on the Razorbacks. They finished by holding Arkansas to 5-of-17 conversions on third and 1-of-4 on fourth down.

Don’t sleep on the offense, either. Mississippi State converted 7-of-10 third downs and got a first on its only fourth-down attempt. This was the difference in the game.