Former Mississippi State coach Jackie Sherrill weighs in on SEC’s nine-game format

Folks on social media and in the media, like yours truly, have made their predictions about who will be the Bulldogs’ three annual SEC opponents.

One person that’s able to provide a unique perspective is the man who has won more games at Mississippi State than anyone else is Sherrill.

“Mississippi (Ole Miss) will be one, obviously,” Sherrill told me Friday morning. “Then it’ll probably be Auburn or Alabama and, maybe Kentucky is the third.”

Sherill also added that Texas A&M could be a possibility for the third team. It's not hard to get the idea the Bulldogs' opponents will be a wild card.

“Texas A&M is going to have Texas,” Sherrill said. “They’ll probably also have LSU and can do either Auburn or Mississippi State.”

As for fans hoping to avoid a restart of the Bulldogs’ historical rivalry with Alabama, here’s what the two-time national championship winning Alabama player said.

“Alabama will have Auburn and Tennessee and, it’ll probably be LSU or Mississippi State or Mississippi (Ole Miss).”

That last one would certainly make Mississippi State fans happy. Fans of the Bulldogs don’t need to reminded the Crimson Tide has an 88-17-3 record in games against Mississippi State and if the Bulldogs aren’t having to play Alabama every season…there won’t be too many tears shed.

Sherrill, whose 75 wins in Starkville are the most in program history, has a piece of advice for others making predictions.

“Whatever ends up happening, it’s probably going to match up with the historical series for teams,” he said.

As a coach who spent 20 seasons leading SEC football programs, Sherrill also has a unique perspective about the conference’s decision to add another conference game.

“I don’t know of any head coach in the SEC that is in favor of nine games,” he said. “What that’s going to do is those three non-conference games, they’re not going to be ‘coin-flip’ games. They’re going to be games you know you’ll win just by showing up.”

Sherrill also added that it will be nearly impossible to go undefeated in conference play with addition of an extra SEC game.

“It’s going to be very hard to run the table with nine conference games,” Sherrill said. “It will take a great football team to do that, and a team that stays healthy. Even if you have a very good team, if you lose one or two players at key spots, it will drastically impact your football team.”

Mississippi State learned that lesson last season when, among others, its starting quarterback Blake Shapen went down with a season-ending injury.

With the addition of another SEC game, that injury risk (and a team’s depth) have become a lot more important.

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