Jeff Lebby on opening road games at Georgia, Texas: 'That is part of the league'

Mississippi State won’t be able to catch a break during the 2024 regular season. The Bulldogs’ SEC schedule presents a tough road for them down the stretch this season — and it starts almost right away.

First-year head coach Jeff Lebby makes his SEC debut at home against Florida in a game that could go either way on paper. After that, they’ll endure the toughest two-game stretch of the season with consecutive road trips to both Texas and Georgia.

“To me, that is part of the league that we’re living in,” Lebby said of Mississippi State’s strength of schedule at SEC Media Days. “I’ve continued to talk about this. You want to do it with the best. You want to do it against the best. We’re going to have every opportunity in the world to show everyone actually who we are as a program and as a football team, and I look at that as an opportunity for our guys.”

After that, Mississippi State will enjoy three-straight home games spanning from Oct. 19 vs. Texas A&M until the Nov. 2 matchup against UMass. They’ll host Arkansas in between.

The Bulldogs will go through another tough stretch after that for the final three games of the regular season. They’ll travel to Neyland Stadium to take on the Tennessee Volunteers on Nov. 9 before enjoying a BYE the following week. They wrap up the regular season at home against Missouri and a trip to Oxford for the Egg Bowl against Ole Miss.

Despite the tough strength of schedule presented to the Bulldogs, Lebby will put his best foot forward and combat those obstacles the best his team can. Inheriting a team that won five games in 2023 that lost over 25 players to the transfer portal this offseason is an uphill battle in and of itself, let alone facing one of the toughest schedules in the SEC this fall.

Lebby has talked at length about the buzz he feels when he walks into the Bulldogs facilities each day and how quickly the team has meshed throughout the spring, summar and now into fall training. He feels the “genuine juice” in the Mississippi State building — and is hoping it translates on the field each Saturday.

The Bulldogs will look to kick the Jeff Lebby era off on the right foot to begin the 2024 regular season on Aug. 31 against Eastern Kentucky in Week 1. Matchups at Arizona State and against Toledo will lead Mississippi State into SEC play against he Gators during Week 4 before the Texas-Georgia stretch gets underway.