Starkville gearing up for game vs. Gators

Mississippi State Bulldogs head coach Dan Mullen has all but begged the residents of Mississippi to not only sell out Saturday night’s game against the Florida Gators but set an attendance record in doing so. Based on ticket sales, the school’s athletic director Greg Byrne believes Mullen will achieve that goal or surpassing the current record of 56,118.

But Mullen is not the only one in Starkville, MS, trying to turn up the intensity for Saturday. His players are just as pumped up and confident that a victory over the BCS No. 1-ranked Gators is possible.

“You can just feel it everywhere you go,” senior running back Anthony Dixon said. “The intensity in that stadium is going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen around here. It’s going to take us and the fans, the whole Mississippi State program, for us to pull this off. I don’t want to say much because I want to keep [the game plan] a secret. [Mullen] just told us that we have a chance, that we can beat them. I don’t want to say too much else and don’t want to give away our secret plan of knocking off the champs. But if we go out there and play hard and play our game, we can win this game.”

Having won four straight games against the Gators in Starkville is reason enough for the Bulldogs to be confident, but they have never faced a Florida team as talented as this one – even with the potential for three starting defensive players to miss the game. And they have yet to face head coach Urban Meyer at home, either.