In a battle between the Big Ten and the SEC, Iowa and Mississippi State will play for conference supremacy in the Outback Bowl Tuesday in the first game of 2019.
Both teams enter the game with identical 8-4 records. The unranked Hawkeyes were second in the Big Ten West division while the No. 18 Bulldogs finished in fourth place in the SEC West.
Each team is riding a two-game win streak after winning the final two games of their respective seasons. For Iowa, the season concluded on a high note after squeaking out a close win against Nebraska, whereas Mississippi State handled Ole Miss easily to end the season.
Head coach Joe Moorhead feels good about the way his team practiced last week, but he said as a coach “you’re never fully comfortable” heading into any game, especially a game of this magnitude.
Iowa was really, really close to a massive season but had a stretch of three straight losses. All three, which were to Penn State, Purdue and Northwestern were by six points or fewer and a total of 12 points.
With a win over Iowa, this year’s MSU team can match last year’s 9-4 mark in the first year of the Joe Moorhead era.
This will be the last game for senior Bulldog quarterback Nick Fitzgerland.
“It means a lot more when it’s your last one,” Fitzgerald said last week. “It means a lot more that you get to go to a great bowl game — a New Year’s Day bowl, and it’s warm. That’s always a huge positive too.”
Fitzgerald has completed over 60 percent of his passes with 11 touchdowns and no interceptions since the loss to LSU. He’s been able to do damage on the ground as well, rushing for 434 yards and five touchdowns during that span.
So what has been the difference? Not even he is sure.
“Whatever it was, I’m definitely thankful for it,” Fitzgerald said.
If there’s a soft spot in Iowa’s No. 7 total defense, it’s the secondary. The Hawkeyes allowed 200-plus passing yards in half of their games this season.
But on the other hand, Iowa has intercepted 18 passes.
In a game primed to be a defensive struggle on both sides, Fitzgerald must find a way to continue his recent success one last time in the maroon and white. If he does, the Bulldogs have better than decent odds of securing their ninth win of the year in Tampa.
Fitzgerald is the Bulldogs’ leading rusher and has totaled 1,018 yards and 12 rushing touchdowns while averaging more than five yards per carry this season.
Multiple times this season, the MSU defense stymied the opposition and put the game in the hands of State’s offense.
Too many times, the offense failed to answer the bell.
In Mississippi State’s four losses, the Bulldog defense allowed an average of 300.3 yards per game. That average would rank No. 11 in the country.
MSU’s No. 1 scoring defense and No. 3 total defense did enough for the Bulldogs to make a run at 10-plus wins and possibly even an SEC West division title.
Signs point to State’s defense being able to limit Iowa’s No. 77 ranked total offense enough to once again allow the offense to determine the outcome of the game, which leads into the next two questions.
