23 Oct 1999: Head coach Jackie Sherrill of the Mississippi State Bulldogs watches the action from the sidelines during a game against the LSU Tigers at the Scott Stadium in Starkville, Mississippi. The Bulldogs defeated the Tigers 17-16. Mandatory Credit: Scott Halleran /Allsport

The record of the 2018 Mississippi State football team will end up better than the record of the 2001 team, but the disappointment is greater.

There are not many seasons where fans of the Mississippi State football team and media alike were expecting great years. Expectations for the 2018 were as high as they have been in some time, but the team has failed to live up to anything close to what fans and media pundits were predicting for the 2018 team.

One other year in which the Mississippi State football team was expected to accomplish great things was in 2001. The Bulldogs were picked by the media to finish second in the SEC West, and some even thought the Bulldogs could win the SEC and the overall SEC title. This was the year where Steve Robertson of genespage.com predicted MSU would appear in the Rose Bowl.

To say the least, the Mississippi State football team did not finish the year in the Rose Bowl. The Bulldogs won three games in 2001, and it is considered one of the most disappointing seasons in the history of the program.

As of right now, it is a safe assumption to think this year’s Mississippi State football team can win six or seven games with a possibility of an additional one this weekend. 8 wins for this year’s team is truly optimistic while 6 or 7 seems like the most realistic scenario. Even if the Bulldogs get to six or seven wins, the 2018 season will outweigh the 2001 season in terms of disappointment.

The primary reason it is more disappointing falls heavily on the fact this year’s team has such an amazing defense while the 2001 team didn’t do anything well at all. The 2018 Mississippi State football defense is playing at a championship caliber. Here is where the Bulldogs rank defensively in the nation as of this writing.

Scoring Defense: 4th

Total Defense: 6th

Tackles for loss per game: 14th

Rushing defense: 21st

Passing defense: 10th

3rd Down Conversion Percentage: 10th

The Mississippi State football team didn’t need much from its offense in 2018. Simply scoring 20 points in their four SEC games this season would have been enough to win them three of those games. They could only muster 20+ points once, the game they won against Auburn, and they couldn’t score more than seven in any of the three losses.

When Coach Joe Moorhead was hired to lead the Mississippi State football program, he was billed as an offensive genius and innovator. But simply being an average offensive coach would have led to an undefeated record for the Bulldogs at this point in the season. The Bulldogs are far from average on the offensive side of the football.

I was finishing my degree up in the first semester of the 2001-02 school year, and I went to every home game during the 2001 football season. I remember it well. Nothing about that season was good, and once the initial letdown was over, the disappointment was easy to deal with the rest of the season.

With the Mississippi State football team putting up such an incredible defensive effort in 2018, it is hard to move past the disappointment of what simply having a decent offense would have meant to this year’s team. And this is why the 2018 season is more disappointing than the 2001 season.