Football Looks for First SEC Win Against Mississippi State

THE GAME –  Sun Devil Football continues its 2024 non-conference slate this weekend as it welcomes the Mississippi State Bulldogs to Mountain America Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 7. Scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. AZT kickoff, the contest will be broadcast on ESPN (Mark Jones, Roddy Jones, Quint Kessenich) and available over the airwaves locally on ESPN 620 AM (Tim Healey, Jeff Van Raaphorst, Kevin Turner, Jeff Munn).

ON THE BULLDOGS –  This will be the first ever meeting between the Sun Devils and Bulldogs, with ASU looking for its first victory over an SEC team in program history. While ASU has three wins over Missouri and one over Oklahoma, those schools were not in the SEC at the time of those competitions. The Bulldogs have won 10 straight non-conference games since Sept. 3, 2022. The streak started with a home win against Memphis, including a bowl game win over Illinois. MSU is 26-5 in non-conference games dating back to the 2017 season. Mississippi State concluded week one with the best team passing grade in the SEC, second-best nationally, (93.7) per Pro Football Focus.Mississippi State scored five of its six offensive touchdowns in five plays or less against Eastern Kentucky. » State’s time of possession averaged 1:49 per offensive drive & 1:38 per scoring drive. Only two scoring drives went longer than two minutes.

KICKING OFF

• ASU has now held opponents to less than 30 points in 42 of 68 games since 2018 (61.8 percent), notable as it DID allow 30+ in 32 of the 43 previous games (74.4 percent) in a span from 2013- 17.
• Since 2018, ASU has held opponents to 400 total yards of offense or less on 37 occasions over 68 games (54.4 percent of the time). For comparison, ASU accomplished the feat just 24 times in the 65 previous games (36.9 percent) from 2013-2017. 
• ASU’s offensive linemen had a combined 156 career starts spread amongst them entering the 2024 season, the fifth-highest tally in the country.
• The Sun Devils were among the worst teams in the nation on third downs last season, both converting and defending – ranking 120th in converting just 31.76 percent of their attempts and 91st in allowing opponents to convert 40.99 percent of theirs. While the sample size is small, the Sun Devils certainly showed immense improvement in the category in the opener as the team converted 53.33 percent of its opportunites (8-of-15) – the 40th-best tally in the FBS – whole limiting Wyoming to just 23.08 percent of theirs (3-of-13) – 28th-best…