The Missouri Tigers ran. And ran. And ran.

The Tigers ran the ball 56 times for 204 yards to power Missouri to a 39-20 win against the Mississippi State Bulldogs in Starkville, Mississippi on Saturday.

"We were just able to control the line of scrimmage," Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. "... Our running backs did a good job continuing to run hard."

It was the first time Missouri beat Mississippi State since joining the SEC, leaving Alabama as the only conference team Missouri is yet to beat. The Tigers hadn’t beat the Bulldogs since Sept. 22, 1984.

The first couple of drives were sluggish for Missouri, getting bounced off the field on consecutive three-and-outs offensively, but the momentum completely flipped when Kristian Williams broke into the backfield and hit the hand of a scrambling Michael Van Buren to force a fumble, which Daylan Carnell scooped at the Missouri 32 and returned 68 yards for a touchdown to put the Tigers in front 7-3 with 6:33 left in the first quarter.

"We went three-and-out and were backed up and don't get much of a punt. It's not looking good, we're not playing well and they've got all the momentum," Drinkwitz said. "Eddie Kelly did a great job for us ... then Kristian Williams comes from behind and gets the arm. It goes back to us for practice execution making game-day reality for another scoop-and-score Bolton drill that we work all the time and Daylan Carnell did it."

"I just see Kristian Williams make a heck of a play, we were on that every day in practice," Carnell said. "... Once I grabbed the ball and seen the end zone, touchdown from there."

Then the Tigers used that momentum and got rolling.

Missouri’s next drive started with a 6-yard run from Marcus Carroll, who ended with 61 yards on 14 carries with three touchdowns, bringing him to 10 scores on the season and giving Drinkwitz a nine-touchdown rusher for the fifth consecutive year to start his Mizzou tenure.

"It's pretty awesome to be a goal-line back," Drinkwitz said. "I'm sure Nate (Noel) was pretty ticked off, he does most of the work between the 5s, but Marcus finished them off. They both have their strengths and we try to really play to their strengths."

Then Jamal Roberts broke free for a 14-yard run and Brady Cook dropped a deep pass into the hands of Marquis Johnson, who was blanketed by two defenders, for a 45-yard gain. It was the second consecutive week Cook and Johnson connected on a deep pass after not hitting one through the season’s first nine games.

Roberts then ran for 5 yards, Carroll added a 3-yard carry, then Carroll took it up the middle for a 2-yard touchdown to put Missouri up 14-3 with 2:49 left in the first.

Mississippi State was able to drive for a touchdown with Van Buren finding Jordan Mosley on an 11-yard scoring pass with 23 seconds left in the first quarter to make it 14-10 Missouri, but the Tigers would added two more touchdowns on their next two drives to score on their final three times with the ball in the first half.

"We weren't playing aggressive enough in our zone coverage," Drinkwitz said. "... Ultimately we were able to do a good job in the red zone and on third down."

Missouri opened the second quarter with an 11-play, 79-yard drive with Nate Noel running for 30 yards on four plays, while Cook dropped in passes of 14 yards to Theo Wease and 5 yards to Luther Burden. Then Cook heaved a 28-yard pass to Burden, who shifted his momentum from running to his left, all the way around the back of his defender for a catch leaning right, to put the Tigers up 21-10 with 10:05 left before halftime.

The Tiger defense forced a three-and-out to get Cook and the offense another try starting at its own 17.

Cook completed a 38-yard pass to Wease on third-and-6 to keep the drive alive, then it was back to the ground as Noel and Cook combined for four rushes on the next four plays, setting up a first-and-10 at the Mississippi State 19. Then Carroll ran in his second score, the longest of the day at 19 yards, to put Missouri up 28-10 with 4:34 left before halftime.

"Our O-Line got after it today, they dominated the line of scrimmage," Carroll said. "They really made it easy on us today."

The Bulldogs were able to put together a long drive before the half, but were held to a 26-yard field goal to send the teams into the break with Missouri leading 28-13.

Missouri wasn’t able to put the Bulldogs away in the third though, driving 57 yards on 14 plays to eat almost nine minutes of clock to open the third quarter, but the drive ended with a 35-yard Blake Craig field goal to extend the Tiger lead to 31-13.

Mississippi State then needed only two plays for Davon Booth to gash the Tiger defense for 65 combined yards, a run of 22 and a 43-yard touchdown run, to cut the Tiger lead to 31-20.

Missouri ran off another four minutes of clock, but was unable to extend the lead as Craig missed a 44-yard attempt, making him 20-of-30 overall this season, but just 1-of-7 from 40-49 yards.

The Bulldogs were driving again, and got into the red zone, but on fourth-and-3 from the Tiger 17, Van Buren’s pass fell incomplete and the Tigers took over with 14:23 left to play.

Missouri ate up the clock again, running the ball 11 times on a 14-play drive to go 83 yards and set up Carroll’s third score with 5:41 left to play.

The three pass plays on the drive were a 36-yard Cook completion to Josh Manning as Manning worked through a tackle and gained most of the yards after the catch, a 16-yard completion to Burden who did all the work after the catch while running around defenders, and a 5-yard completion to Burden on a jet pass.

Missouri’s receivers had been near the bottom of the conference in yards after the catch through the season, but did a significant amount of their damage after the catch Saturday. With 149 of the team’s 268 receiving yards coming after the catch.

Carroll’s score created the final margin when he took a direct snap up the middle for the two-point conversion.

Noel led the team with 95 rushing yards on 25 attempts, while Carroll had 61 yards on 14 tries, Roberts had 29 yards on five tries and Cook had 16 yards on eight carries.

"As a whole running back group, we did a good job getting downhill, getting what we can and wearing the defense down," Carroll said.

Kewan Lacy took one carry for 6 yards, but left the game because of an “Upper body injury.”

"At the end of the day, we're always our brother’s keeper," Carroll said. "It’s unfortunate because Kewan works very hard, you hate to see him go down. Definitely our brother’s keeper, so when he’s down, we gotta play for Kewan, play hard and take advantage of every opportunity.”

Cook completed 15-of-20 passes for 268 yards, mostly to Burden who had 91 yards and the touchdown on seven catches. Wease had 72 yards on four receptions.

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