100 Day Bulldog Countdown: 45 Days - Looking back at the 1980 season

Year two of the Jeff Lebby era has arrived and the Mississippi State coach is back to work.

After a disappointing first season, the coach and his staff are doing what they can to get things back on track in Starkville. The players on the field will be the difference for State this season if they are to make a return and we’re going to discuss every single one of them over the course of the next few months.

As we do every year, we’re counting down 100 days until State’s first game at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg on August 30. Over this period of time, we’ll breakdown every scholarship player on the roster, look back at great moments in MSU history and even talk about legends that have come before the current Bulldogs.

Today, we look back at one of the best seasons in school history.

45 Days: Flashing back 45 years to the 1980 season

In 2018, Mississippi State had the No. 1 defense in the country, but the Bulldogs had one before that which really set the standard. That group came to power nationally in 1980 with senior Tyrone Keys, juniors Glen Collins and Jonnie Cooks, sophomore Mike McEnany and freshman Billy Jackson.

It’s a group that became the greatest statistical unit in MSU history on the defensive side of the ball and one that took down “the Bear”. A 6-3 win over No. 1 Alabama takes the headlines of 1980, but that team was much more than that.

It was Emory Bellard’s second season taking over a program from Bob Tyler that would be ravaged in NCAA sanctions. The Bulldogs lost three years’ worth of wins from 1975-77 with a 2-31 record along the way tarnishing what had been a pretty successful tenure for Tyler. It was heading into decline, however, as he went to a 6-5 season in ’78 that ended with what was a disappointing 27-7 loss to Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl.

So the Bulldogs turned to new management, and that included the Athletic Director position that had been run by the head coach for many years. The Bulldogs hired Carl Maddox who was serving for the last 10 years at LSU and he would look to get MSU back on track with its football program.

Maddox looked west to fill that spot at Texas A&M where the Aggies had just had their football coach resign in 1978 despite a 4-2 start. Emory Bellard had shown he could build a program and have success after going from three, to five, to eight and then 10 wins in his first four years in College Station. He had back-to-back 10-win seasons in 1975 and ’76 before dropping down to eight wins in 1977 and then losing consecutive games in ’78 after a 4-2 start. Bellard was known as one of the most innovative offensive minds and college football and when he got his personnel to run his patented Wishbone offense, things really got rolling.

That seemed to be the case for him in Starkville as well as he turned his first season from three wins to a nine-win year in 1980. It was a season to remember for Bellard and all of the Bulldog fans as State jumped out to a 3-0 record with wins over Memphis, Louisiana Tech and Vanderbilt.

After losing to Florida and Southern Miss sandwiched around a win over Illinois, the Bulldogs began to make a climb that hadn’t been seen around Starkville in some time. State went to Miami and upset the No. 18 Hurricanes 34-31 then beat Auburn 24-21 in what would become a string of four-straight games in Jackson to end the season. And it was just one of an unforgettable set of wins.

The big one, of course, was when the mighty Crimson Tide of Alabama came to the Capitol City. Bama was winners of 28-straight games overall dating back to 1978 and the Bulldogs hadn’t beaten them in 22 years – they had never won a game against legendary coach Bear Bryant.

This magical day would be different. Against the powerful Bama front, the Bulldogs proved stronger. Keys, Collins, Cooks and Jackson blew up the line of scrimmage time and time again and got in the backfield for stops. Before State knew it, they were in the game with a 6-3 lead late in the fourth quarter, but Bama was driving.

The Tide marched the ball down to the 4 yard line. The ball was snapped on an option play, Don Jacobs kept the ball, Cooks put the hit on him, knocked the ball loose and Jackson fell on top of it to give the Bulldogs the ball back in the waning seconds. They would hold on to win the game and pull off one of the biggest upsets in MSU history.

State would go on to put up 55 points in a win over LSU the next week with a fresh No. 19 ranking and they would beat Ole Miss 19-14 in the Egg Bowl to win the final five games of the regular season and clinch a Sun Bowl date in El Paso, Texas. Though MSU lost against No. 8 Nebraska in a 31-17 ball game, it didn’t dampen the 9-3 season in which State finished 5-1 in the SEC, just back of undefeated Georgia.

The 1980 team would be the peak of Bellard’s career at MSU. He would coach the Bulldogs seven seasons but he turned in an 8-4 record in 1981 for a team that had some of the highest expectations of any in MSU history even to this day. He followed that up with four-straight losing seasons prompting a change to be made by administration.

Bellard won’t be remembered for what he did in those final seasons, though. He’ll be thought of highly for that 1980 team and the memories he brought thousands of Bulldog fans who all claim to have been there in “The Vet” that beautiful Saturday.

The mark is left on the record books by that crew. Cooks, offensive guard Wayne Harris, tackle Alan Massey and wide receiver Mardye McDole were all named first-team All-SEC by the league following the season with Collins and Keys earning second-team honors.

An up-and-coming freshman quarterback by the name of John Bond would put together a freshman rushing record of 720 yards that 1980 season. He beat the Bear and got his first win of four over LSU. Bond would eventually rush for 2,280 yards. He held the rushing record for a quarterback until 2018 when Nick Fitzgerald broke it.

Bellard’s offense was a rushing machine with Bond leading the way and Fred Collins and Michael Haddix behind him. Wide receiver McDole made it difficult for defenses providing that threat of a downfield option. Haddix went on to rush for 2,358 yards in his career. The team rushed for a school record 651 times and 3,135 yards that season.

The defense carried a massive load themselves. Keys is still tied for first in career fumble recoveries with six. Billy Jackson holds an unbreakable sack record of 49.0 with Keys behind him at 26.0, Cooks 4th with 24.0 and McEnany fifth with 22. The crew are all in the top 10 for career tackles for loss as well.