Mississippi State survives comeback bid for first win over Tigers since 1999

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Dak Prescott treated a national audience to an extraordinary performance and Mississippi State ended a 14-year losing streak against LSU by holding off a wild rally after most Tigers fans had left Death Valley.

Prescott passed for 268 yards and two touchdowns and highlighted his 105 yards rushing with a 56-yard scoring run, and Mississippi State celebrated a stunning 34-29 victory over No. 8 LSU.

MSU led 34-10 in the fourth quarter, but LSU scored three late touchdowns, two in a span of 28 seconds. That set up a last-second desperation heave by LSU backup quarterback Brandon Harris, which was intercepted by Will Redmond at the goal line.

“I’m really proud of the way our kids played, how we performed. We said we had to play for four quarters. As it turns out, we had to play for every second of that four quarters,” Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen said.

Prescott, a Louisiana native, not only helped the Bulldogs (4-0, 1-0 Southastern Conference) beat LSU (3-1, 0-1) for the first time since 1999, but win in Tiger Stadium for the first time since 1991 — about two years before Prescott was born.

His touchdown passes included a 74-yarder to Jameon Lewis, who had five catches for 116 yards. De’Runnya Wilson caught four passess for 91 yards, including a tough 9-yard touchdown catch along the sideline to give the Bulldogs a 7-0 lead. Josh Robinson rushed 16 times for 197 yards and a touchdown for MSU, which led 17-3 at halftime and never trailed.

LSU’s offense struggled to sustain drives until after MSU had built a 34-10 fourth-quarter lead, though the Tigers somehow managed to make the final minutes interesting.

Malachi Dupre caught a 31-yard touchdown pass from Harris with 1:55 left, and after an MSU fumble on a bad shot-gun snap in its own territory, Harris found Dupre again from 30 yards to make it a one-score game with 1:27 left.

The Bulldogs recovered LSU’s onside kick attempt, then left LSU only 20 seconds after a punt through the end zone. Still, Harris managed to get the Tigers to midfield in time for one last desperate deep pass to the goal line.

Redmond intercepted the pass as time expired, and was mobbed by teammates as players wearing maroon jerseys celebrated on the field, while the few LSU fans who stuck around fell silent.

Mississippi State had won its first three games easily, but those victories over Southern Miss, UAB and South Alabama hadn’t won over enough AP poll voters to get the Bulldogs into the Top 25.

That’s bound to change after Mississippi State became the first unranked team to win in Tiger Stadium since Ole Miss did it in 2008, when LSU was ranked 18th.

The buildup to the game was significant in Baton Rouge because it marked the first Southeastern Conference game in Tiger Stadium since it had been expanded with new seating rising steeply above the south end zone, increasing capacity to more than 102,000.

During the Tigers’ previous two home games — victories of 56-0 over Sam Houston State and 31-0 over Louisiana-Monroe — fans left early. With the Bulldogs leading 31-10 and driving inside the LSU 20 as the third quarter ended, fans started filing out again.

Meanwhile, the LSU defense, which was oozing with confidence after shutting out opponents for the equivalent of about 10 quarters, was staggered repeatedly by Prescott and Co. Mississippi State gained 20 or more yards on 10 separate plays. Those included a 66-yard run by Robinson which set up a second-quarter field goal to make it 17-0.