The Reflector

Media Credit: De Schmidt MSU athletic department announced Monday a single-day record of over 7,000 student season tickets sold. This can partly be attributed to a home schedule featuring Florida and Ole Miss.

By now, everyone has heard about Ole Miss' Top-10 ranking. If not, it's only a matter of time before some Ole Miss fan tells you all about it, especially since Mississippi jumped two spots in the just-released AP Poll. The Rebels have a high preseason ranking, but the Mississippi State Bulldogs have something Ole Miss doesn't - a strong schedule.

In fact, college football analyst Phil Steele, on philsteele.com, ranks the Bulldogs' schedule as tied for the sixth-toughest in the country, a fraction of a percentage point behind the SEC team with the toughest, South Carolina. Unlike the NCAA, Steele's calculations are based on this season's opponents' strength of schedules, not 2008. Both the Bulldogs and the Gamecocks get Florida at home, but State also has to play powerful non-conference teams Georgia Tech and Houston, while South Carolina gets NC State and Clemson.

In their 2009 SEC preview, Sports Illustrated called the Bulldogs' schedule downright brutal, and one of the toughest home schedules in the country.

But therein lies the silver lining for first-year head coach Dan Mullen's inaugural season: all his toughest games will be played in front of his own fans. With season ticket sales already breaking the all-time record earlier this month and student tickets going on sale this week, Bulldog fans will be packed in tight at Davis-Wade Stadium at Scott Field.

"Nobody in the country has a home schedule better than the Bulldogs - it may be the best home schedule in college football history" Mullen said, when asked about the strength of the schedule. "Get your tickets fast!"

Five top-15 teams will ride into Starkville this season, including Mullen's former team Florida, current champs and No. 1 in both polls, on October 24. Rounding out the schedule are No. 11 LSU on September 26, No. 15 Georgia Tech on October 3, No. 5 Alabama on November 14, and No. 8 Ole Miss in the season finale. Even projected Conference-USA favorite Houston, with C-USA's 2008 Offensive Player of the Year Case Keenum (5,020 yards, 44 TDs), will be no easy task for the Bulldogs on homecoming night October 10.

The players, for their part, are unfazed.

"It's the same teams we've usually been playing. It's a tough schedule but you know every week, it's the SEC," said junior safety Zach Smith. "They're supposed to be tough. It's the best conference in the country, so you gotta be ready."

Senior quarterback Tyson Lee said he finds the schedule to be a big opportunity.

"There are some extremely big home games, and it's going to be good for our fans and for us as a football team," Lee said. "Years from now you can look back and say you played some of the best teams in the country."

Lee said he thinks playing all their toughest games at home will be their biggest advantage this season.

"Any time you can get any kind of advantage, you want that, and playing on your home turf is probably the biggest advantage you can have. When they come to your place, you have to execute," Lee said. "The fans will be behind us, the coach will be behind us, and when it comes game time we'll just have to execute on the football field."

Coach Mullen added: "When you're in the Southeastern Conference you need to win your home football games. If we win all our home games, at that point we've taken a great step in the right direction especially with the strength of schedule we have at home, to reaching our goal, which is to get to Atlanta."

In 2009, the road to the championship game in Atlanta goes through Starkville.

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