Legacies Of ’74 & ’99 Teams Still Ringing Loud And Clear
September 21, 2024 | Football, Joel Coleman
Mississippi State celebrated a couple of its most memorable squads over the weekend.
STARKVILLE – On a special weekend at Mississippi State, Saturday's game couldn't have gotten off to a more appropriate start.
In a corner of Davis Wade Stadium stood Jackie Sherrill. The legendary former head coach of the Bulldogs was serving as the day's celebrity cowbell ringer ahead of kickoff.
Sherrill was back in town to take part in a 25-year reunion of MSU's 1999 squad that went 10-2 and won the Peach Bowl. It was one of two special gatherings over the weekend with the 1974 Sun Bowl-winning squad also reuniting to celebrate 50 years since their own magical year in Maroon.
As Sherrill shook perhaps the country's largest artificial noisemaker and the crowd roared in approval, it was clear. The legacies of Sherrill's '99 bunch as well as the '74 squad are still ringing loud and clear in Starkville.
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The word 'family' is often associated with Mississippi State. If the 1974 Bulldogs didn't start that trend, they certainly strengthened it.
As long-time members of the Maroon and White faithful remember, and as younger generations may not be aware, MSU went 11 straight seasons without a single postseason appearance prior to the '74 season. But this was a Bulldog bunch that wouldn't be defined by the past.
The success of '74 in many ways began in '73. That's when Bob Tyler took over the MSU program and instilled a culture of belief – belief that Mississippi State could and would have success.
"Coach Tyler had recruited a lot of us and did a good job with that, but he came in and changed the attitude," quarterback Rockey Felker said. "He put that belief in us that if you work hard and do what we ask you to do, we'd be successful. He was a positive coach and attitude was a big thing for Coach Tyler."
Kicker Vic Nickels recalls just how big of a deal positivity was for Tyler.
"Every week or every other week, we'd find in our mailboxes a new book to read [on positivity]," Nickles said. "That's what we were driven to be – to believe we were going to be able to do something in our lives that you thought might be impossible."
It's hard to stop a group that just simply believes, even in adverse circumstances. Couple that with an unbreakable unity built through intense workouts and practices, and the ingredients to '74's remarkable recipe are clear.
"We were a team," tight end Howard Lewis said. "We weren't a bunch of individuals. Rockey Felker was the quarterback, but Rockey Felker was just one of us. We didn't have any stars or anything. We were just a bunch of boys that went out and played as hard as we could. We didn't know any better."
The year's results reflected State's unity and refusal to accept anything less than success. There was a blowout win over Georgia down in Jackson and a thrilling down-to-the-wire triumph in Memphis. Later, a one-point victory over LSU preceded an Egg Bowl win over Ole Miss and the path to the Sun Bowl was paved. For the first time in more than a decade, the Bulldogs were bowling again.
Terry Vitrano was one of the key figures in making sure State made the most of it. Vitrano began the Sun Bowl with a 55-yard run on the first play from scrimmage. He then put the exclamation point on it with a two-yard touchdown rush late in the fourth quarter as State topped North Carolina in comeback fashion, 26-24. Vitrano was selected as the game's Most Valuable Offensive Player.
On the other side of the football, Jimmy Webb was chosen as the Sun Bowl's Most Valuable Defensive Player after collecting 12 tackles including a key stop on fourth-and-short near midfield to preserve the MSU win.
But while Vitrano and Webb earned personal hardware, the Sun Bowl was one last show of the Dawgs' overall togetherness and never-say-die demeanor.
This bunch truly was a family. Fifty years since they made their mark, it was apparent at Friday night's dinner and at their game day recognition Saturday that they'll always be.
"It's a team that needs to be recognized and needs to be honored because it's one of the best teams we've ever had," Felker said.
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Twenty-five years after the Sun Bowl champion Bulldogs showed what belief and brotherhood could do, another group wearing Maroon and White flashed the same characteristics.
To be clear, the 1999 Mississippi State team under Sherrill that won 10 games and earned a Peach Bowl victory was far from a carbon copy of Tyler's Bulldogs. But there were certainly similarities.
Comeback wins over Kentucky, LSU, Auburn and Ole Miss showed Sherrill – like Tyler – was leading a group that was all on the same page and would not be denied regardless of what uniform was on the opposing sideline or how insurmountable the odds might seem.
"They wouldn't give up," Sherrill said. "We came back in quite a few games to win at the end and turn things around. I don't know who the coach was, but if he'd been better, we could've been 12-0 instead of 10-2.
"But this team was a mixture of younger guys and older guys that really meshed and played very, very well."
Receiver Larry Huntington remembers things the same way. It was a locker room full of guys who looked out for one another and lifted each other.
"When you were down, you'd get picked up," Huntington said. "When you scored, it was a celebration. It wasn't like guys ran off the field. They came and celebrated with you in the end zone.
"It was a family atmosphere."
And it was a family that had the exact man it needed at the head of the table.
"Coach Sherrill was all in on this team," Huntington said. "He was a coach that you wanted to fight for."
Fight, the Dawgs did, week after week after week. The 1999 season will forever be remembered as the year of the comebacks. Putting the icing on the cake on so many of those heart-stopping moments was kicker Scott Westerfield.
But for all of his heroics, he insists the secret to what he and his teammates were able to accomplish was indeed because, to them, they were all family.
"We were just a tight-knit group," Westerfield said. "We liked being around each other. Guys loved the camaraderie with each other. I couldn't tell you anyone on our team that didn't like somebody else on the team. It was a great group to be with. The coaches did an incredible job building that team and putting it together."
Sherrill and his staff put a squad together that didn't just have the right makeup for team chemistry. They had incredible talent as well, particularly on the defensive side.
Not to take a thing away from an offense that was about as clutch as they come, but it's hard not to think of the '99 Bulldogs as a unit that's foundation was its best-in-the-nation defense.
"We won a lot of games that year by our defense," Sherrill said. "They kept us in games, and we played games where, going into the fourth quarter, we were down. But the defense was able to hold our opponent [so we could ultimately win]."
So very fittingly, it was the defense under coordinator Joe Lee Dunn's leadership that cemented State's first 10-win campaign since MSU's 1940 team. MSU surrendered only a fourth-quarter touchdown to Clemson in the Peach Bowl, winning the ballgame 17-7. Meanwhile the Dawg offense delivered when it had to, with Westerfield knocking through a 39-yard field goal and quarterback Wayne Madkin scoring both rushing and passing touchdowns.
It was an unforgettable year with an incredibly appropriate ending that displayed the team's grit and unity. And it's something that a quarter-century later continues to receive the celebration and adoration it deserves.
"It was a pleasure certainly to coach them, but to see what they accomplished was very, very good, too," Sherril said.
