Five reasons to watch the St. Petersburg Bowl

Okay, listen, we get it. Most likely, you think bowl season starts on New Year's Eve. Maybe slightly earlier depending on when your team is playing. But regardless of whether or not you're aware of them, the bowls have already started, and there's plenty of college football action to get you through to the main event around New Year's.

When star quarterback Dak Prescott left for the NFL last year, it was a bittersweet moment for the Mississippi State program. One of the most successful players was going to live his dream in the NFL. The Bulldogs, on the other hand, played like he was going to walk on to Davis Wade Stadium at any time.

Despite their inconsistent season, they find themselves in a bowl game with a streaking Miami (Ohio) team with a quarterback who had some wizardry performed on his injured knee.

Here are five reasons to the watch the St. Petersburg Bowl.

St. Petersburg Bowl
Miami (OH) (6-6, Mid-American Conference) vs. Mississippi State (5-7, Southeastern Conference)
Location: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg
Time: Monday, Dec. 26, 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT
Channel: ESPN

• Will the real Mississippi State quarterback please standup? Mississippi State replaced Dak Prescott with sophomore quarterback Nick Fitzgerald, who put up a respectable 2,281 yards and 21 touchdowns against 10 interceptions, but it was obviously nowhere near his predecessor’s 3,793-yard, 29-touchdown effort the previous year. He also ran for 1,243 yards and 14 touchdowns, but he wasn’t enough of a threat through the air to keep defenses honest. He couldn’t be relied upon to carry the team consistently, and when the running game got canned and the team fell behind, he couldn’t bring them on his own.
• Then again, can the defense stand up as well? The Bulldogs could put up points, but their defense was allowing 33.1 points per game and 461.4 yards a game. Sometimes they could find their rhythm and outscore opponents, but it was tough to win giving up that many points. Facing a red-hot Miami, may not bode well for this struggling defense.
• Gus Ragland’s magical season. Ragland tore his ACL during spring practice and couldn’t compete for the starting job. Billy Bahl ended up winning the job, completing 55.2 percent of his passes for 1,274 yards. However, Miami went 0-5 with Bahl as a starter and was injured against Ohio. But after a short one-and-a-half game stint with Noah Wezensky at starting quarterback, the Red Hawks named Ragland as their starter, and that’s when the magic started happening. Ragland led Miami on six-game winning streak, where he threw for 15 touchdowns with no interceptions, including a 380-yard, three-touchdown clinic against Ball State in the final regular-season game of the year. He may not have been the starter at the beginning of the year, but he didn’t give up and took the Red Hawks on a wild ride to their first bowl game in five years.
• SEC superiority. As inconsistent as Mississippi State has been this year, it has the athletes and the offense to run all over Miami. Though SEC opponents have been rocking the Bulldogs, they have ahd the athletes to stay competitive at least. Miami will have to play a perfect game in order to have a chance to win against Mississippi State, but it likely will not happen against the physically stronger SEC team.
• Actually seeing Tropicana Field with people. Slight hyperbole, but Tropicana Field has had some embarrassingly low attendance even when the Tampa Bay Rays were good. They ranked last this year in the MLB in total attendance. It will be a welcome change to see it filled with a decent amount of people in the stadium.

Mascot edge: As a dog person, my gut tells me to go with the Bulldogs, but how unoriginal is that? While many teams sport the hawks moniker, I know of only one RedHawks team. Plus, hawks fly; dogs don’t.