Kevin Snyder/MSU Athletics
Football
Logan Lowery, Assistant Director/Communications
OXFORD – While the old adage that defense wins championships is certainly true, Mississippi State proved playing solid defense can help win trophies too.
The Bulldogs’ defense played a crucial role in claiming a 24-22 victory over Ole Miss and helped return the Golden Egg Trophy back to its pedestal inside the Seal Football Complex in the early morning hours on Friday.
“I think it really was a strong effort by our defense, an incredible effort by our defense,” said head coach Mike Leach. “Defensively, we had a lot of really key plays and key stops that I thought were huge.”
The Bulldogs limited Ole Miss to just 4 of 17 on third down conversions and turned the Rebels over on downs on 4th-and-2 from the MSU 6-yard line trailing 16-14 late in the third quarter.
Zach Arnett‘s defense also held Ole Miss to its lowest rushing output of the season at just 78 yards.
“We just harped on stopping the run big time this week,” said linebacker Nathaniel Watson. “We had pads on during all the practices that we had. They were preparing us for physicalness. We knew they had a physical run game and we held up to it.”
Arnett also had the Bulldogs prepared to stop the scrambling ability of dual-threat quarterback Jaxson Dart. The sophomore signal caller was sacked twice – once by Watson and again by Tyrus Wheat – and netted negative-4 yards on the ground on his 10…
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