Mississippi State’s October has been rough, but three Bulldogs have played well enough to catch the eye of national voters anyway. Cornerback Kelley Jones made On3’s midseason All-America first team, while cornerback Jett Jefferson and wide receiver Anthony Evans III both landed on the Associated Press midseason second team.

For a fan base searching for good news, seeing two corners and a top receiver honored at the halfway point is a reminder that the foundation in Starkville is stronger than the recent results look.

Kelley Jones is the corner nobody wants to test

Jones has turned into one of the toughest cornerbacks in the country to throw against. Through six games, quarterbacks targeted the 6-4, 205-pound senior just 20 times, and he allowed only nine catches without giving up a touchdown, per Pro Football Focus. He also has six pass breakups.

On3 paired him with Nebraska’s Andrew Marshall as its first-team corners, and the honor lines up with what Jones said he wanted back in July. 

“To be the best corner in the country, to win the Jim Thorpe Award,” Jones said at SEC Media Days, adding that the plan was “just staying detail-oriented, just doing everything that my coaches tell me to do.”

He also credited the people who helped him get there. “I would say Coach Lebby and my coach, Corey Bell as well. He played a big impact on what I did and for believing in me,” Jones said.

Throwing away from Jones brings its own problem

If offenses stay away from Jones, they run straight into Jefferson. The AP named Notre Dame’s Leonard Moore and Clemson’s Ashton Hampton as its first-team corners, then put Jefferson on the second team alongside Georgia’s Ellis Robinson IV.

Jefferson’s breakout moment came against Missouri, when he led Mississippi State with five passes defended. He explained afterward how the secondary set the tone. 

“We just came out like our coach [Corey Bell] said and just got all over the guys,” Jefferson said. “We had to cover those guys, and it was a really great feeling.”

He also made the final play of that win, knocking down a tipped ball instead of trying to catch it. 

“It was the last play of the game. A lot of tipped balls end in bad ways if you try to catch it. I thought about catching it. In the moment, I knew it was the end of the game, so I just went for the swat down to just knock it down,” Jefferson said.

Two starting corners earning midseason All-America nods from major outlets is a remarkable thing for one secondary, and both of them answer to the same position coach in Bell.

Anthony Evans III keeps producing no matter who throws it

Evans joined Rutgers’ KJ Duff and Wake Forest’s Carlos Hernandez as the AP’s second-team receivers. In the last six games, he caught 47 passes for 614 yards and five touchdowns, and he has kept producing even as injuries forced Mississippi State to shuffle quarterbacks.

His start was historic. Evans had 408 receiving yards through four games, a total that trails only Eric Moulds in 1995 and Justin Jenkins in 2003 for a Mississippi State receiver over the opening four games of a season.

He was at his best against Missouri, with eight catches for 114 yards. Talking about one of those grabs a couple of days later, he described the effort behind it. 

“I had to give it all I’ve got for the guys in front of me, for the team,” Evans said. “I didn’t think I was going to get to. Once I reached out it was like the ball got stuck to my hands.”

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