In counting down to the 2017 SEC football season on Sept. 2, AL.com is today paying tribute to the late Kent Hull of Greenwood, a standout center at Mississippi State.
AL.com is listing the No. 1 player to wear each number (1 through 99) in the conference’s history. There are 58 days until the first Saturday of the SEC football season, and the No. 1 58 is Hull, who died at age 50 on Oct. 18, 2011.
Emory Ballard had a lot of ways to describe Hull, the center for the first four of his seven teams as Mississippi State’s coach.
For instance, Hull was “a rolling bunch of butcher knives” and as “tough as a two-bit steak.”
In the middle of Mississippi State’s wishbone offense from 1979 through 1982, Hull helped the Bulldogs achieve a level of success they hadn’t reached since the 1940s.
Mississippi State had played in three bowl games in its history before the Bulldogs appeared in the Sun Bowl to cap the 1980 season and ended the 1981 season at the Hall of Fame Classic.
Mississippi State’s 5-1 record in league play in 1980 stands as the Bulldogs’ best since they went 4-0-1 in the SEC in 1941, when MSU won its only conference crown. A 21-15 loss at Florida on Sept. 27, 1980, kept MSU from tying Georgia’s undefeated national-title team for the SEC championship that season.
In 1982, Mississippi State led the SEC in total offense for the first time, and it’s done it only once since.
Hull was the fourth Mississippi State player added to the Ring of Honor at the Bulldogs’ Scott Field, and the Kent Hull Trophy is presented annually to the top collegiate offensive lineman in Mississippi by the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
After Mississippi State, Hull was the starting center in four Super Bowls for the Buffalo Bills and earned NFL All-Pro recognition twice.
nBig Games: There are many for this upcoming season in the SEC, but likely none bigger than the Iron Bowl — Alabama at Auburn, Nov. 25.
Auburn brought in Baylor transfer Jarrett Stidham, who has all-SEC talent and will replace below-average quarterback play for the last years on the Plains. Alabama has sophomore QB Jalen Hurts, multiple playmakers on offense and a defense that will be young/inexperienced but still probably dominant because of Nick Saban.
This one could decide the SEC West.
Another is the Egg Bowl — Ole Miss at Mississippi State, Nov. 23.
This rivalry is as heated as ever, considering an Ole Miss booster is suing two Mississippi State players. So yeah, Mississippi State whipped Ole Miss by 35 a year ago in Oxford, and Ole Miss is not eligible for a bowl. But hate is hate, and Thanksgiving night in Starkville is going to be full of it.
