Bulldogs bound for Armed Forces Bowl

Mississippi State is headed to a bowl game for the 11th-straight season

Mississippi State is headed for a New Year's Eve date in the Lone Star State.

MSU will battle Tulsa in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, it was announced on Sunday. The December 31 game takes place at 11 a.m. central in Fort Worth, Texas. The contest is set to be televised by ESPN.

This marks the 11th consecutive season in which the Bulldogs have gone to a postseason bowl game, though this one of course comes under unusual circumstances. The NCAA waived the win requirement for bowl eligibility in this COVID-19-impacted season, so though MSU was only 3-7 overall this season, the Bulldogs were still able to fill one of the Southeastern Conference's bowl slots.

It has been a year in which the Bulldogs have played extremely short-handed at times. The SEC set a 53-player threshold before the season in which if a team had fewer than 53 scholarship players available for a game, the contest could be postponed. Multiple times, Mississippi State played games under the limit due to opt-outs, injuries, transfers, COVID-19 issues and other reasons.

Is it possible the Bulldogs could have even more roster issues headed into the bowl game? Maybe. But State head coach Mike Leach noted on Saturday he thinks his guys are excited to play again.

"Football is always exciting to play," Leach said. "I'd like to think that's why everyone signed up in the first place. I'm not too concerned about it. Everybody is excited to play. We would be really excited to go to a bowl game."

And so to a bowl game, State goes in the form of the Armed Forces Bowl where the Bulldogs will battle a Tulsa team that went 6-2 this season and narrowly lost the American Athletic Conference Championship Game, 27-24, to Cincinnati on Saturday. Tulsa is ranked 22nd in the country in the latest poll from the Associated Press.

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