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STARKVILLE, Mississippi (Ticker) -- Mississippi State is off to its best start ever. Rod Gibson scored on a controversial one-yard touchdown run with 99 seconds left and free safety Pig Prather sealed matters with an interception as the No. 11 Bulldogs went 7-0 for the first time with a 17-16 victory over Louisiana State. Mississippi State had never started a season with seven wins and is 4-0 in the Southeastern Conference for the first time in school history, leading the Western Division. "It feels good to be 7-0," Bulldogs rover Ashley Cooper said. "It is exciting because we have a chance to maybe crack the top 10. We deserve some respect. They say that we have one of the weakest schedules in the SEC, but the teams we are beating are good teams. We can't do anything about the schedule. We just play the games." For the second straight game, the Bulldogs needed points in the final two minutes to pull out a victory. Coming off an improbable 18-16 win at Auburn on October 9, Mississippi State found itself trailing 16-11 midway through the fourth quarter. But the Bulldogs embarked on their longest drive of the game, converting twice on fourth down. The second fourth-down play came with the ball on the LSU 1. Gibson took a handoff and was running over left guard when he lost his footing. On a close call, the officials ruled the ball had broken the plane of the goal line before Gibson's right knee hit the grass. "I thought we had stopped them, then the official ran over and looked and signaled touchdown," said LSU defensive end Kareem Mitchell. "We expected them to run the ball. The coaches called the right plays and we could have won the game. We should have won the game." Mississippi State covered 65 yards in 14 plays, melting 6 1/2 minutes off the clock. The longest play of the march was a 20-yard pass from Wayne Madkin to true freshman Terrell Grindle on 3rd-and-9 to the LSU 34. "Toward the end, the same guy showed up that showed up two weeks ago and that was Terrell Grindle," Mississippi State coach Jackie Sherrill said. "He really has done some excellent things for us. He made basically the same play two weeks ago that he made for us tonight." The Tigers (2-5, 0-5 West) drove to the MSU 46 on the ensuing possession, but Prather intercepted Josh Booty and returned it 11 yards before a personal foul pushed the ball to the LSU 43. LSU used its remaining two timeouts as Mississippi State kneeled on the ball four times and Booty's "Hail Mary" attempt from his own 48 was batted out of the end zone on the game's final play. "He had position on me," Booty said of Prather, who also iced the win against Memphis with a late interception. "We tried to run a deep out route and he just picked it off. Maybe I was trying to make something out of nothing. We had a couple of big plays before. I guess I was trying to do that again." "It takes us a long time to get started," MSU defensive back Larry Huntington said. "It seems like we wait until the last few minutes to start clicking." The Tigers have dropped five straight since opening the season with two wins and saw their seven-game winning streak in the series come to an end. It was their first loss to Mississippi State since a 28-19 defeat in 1991 and their first in four trips to Scott Field since 1984. "We had seven years' worth of frustration built up," Bulldogs running back Dicenzo Miller said. "We had to get them this year." Madkin completed 14-of-31 passes for 174 yards and a pair of interceptions. He found Kelvin Love four times for 71 yards. Booty was 14-of-27 for 165 yards and one interception while Rondell Mealey carried 26 times for 51 yards. LSU was limited to 42 yards on the ground, the third straight game that MSU held the opposition under 50. The Bulldogs had a 260-207 edge in total yards. LSU scored on its first possession, marching 72 yards in 16 plays, capped by Mealey's three-yard scoring run with four minutes left in the first quarter. After a 25-yard punt by Jeff Walker, the Tigers had the ball at the MSU 45 and John Corbello capitalized with a 36-yard field goal to make it 10-0 with 11:45 left in the second period. The Bulldogs got on the board with 6:06 left in the half when Eugene Clinton blocked a punt by Corey Gibbs out of the end zone for a safety, cutting the deficit to 10-2. Scott Westerfield's 31-yard field goal with 3:28 remaining pulled Mississippi State within 10-5. Rob Knight blocked a punt to stop LSU's ensuing possession but the Bulldogs could not get any points out of it. On 3rd-and-goal from the 6, Madkin was intercepted in the end zone by linebacker Bradie James on the final play of the half. Robert Bean blocked his third punt this season and his fifth in two years early in the third quarter to give Mississippi State possession at the LSU 44. However, Madkin was intercepted by safety Ryan Clark at the 20, one play after Gibson's three-yard run on 4th-and-1. With 3:12 left in the third quarter, Mississippi State took an 11-10 lead on Justin Griffin's one-yard TD run that capped a six-play, 50-yard drive. LSU's special teams seemed to turn around the game with 11:24 left when strong safety Clarence LeBlanc blocked a punt by Walker and Clark recovered in the end zone to make it 16-11. "We told Coach (Gerry DiNardo) we were going to make something big happen and we did," Clark said. "I told the team Thursday night that the kicking game would be very critical in the game and we wound up scoring six points on it," DiNardo said. "I was pleased about how hard they played. They just don't get rewarded for it."
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