How Mike Leach, K.J. Costello had memorable Mississippi State debuts in win over LSU

BATON ROUGE, La. – None of them wanted to leave. 

The group of a hundred or so Mississippi State fans who made the trip down to Baton Rouge stood in the lowest bowl of Tiger Stadium with the phrase "Welcome to Death Valley" hanging above their heads in big, block lettering behind them. 

Those are intimidating words. More years than not, they've hung above Bulldog fans' heads as a reminder of the difficulty of winning there. More years than not – 13 of the last 15 they've played at the venue, to be exact – those words rang true. 

Not Saturday.

Not on the day a new era of Mississippi State football dawned. Not on the day Mike Leach and K.J. Costello made their Mississippi State debuts. The mood was anything but frightful for the folks who braved what has historically been an extremely unfriendly environment to them. 

Mississippi State just beat the defending national champion LSU Tigers. The Bulldogs were dancing and prancing on the field where the upset occurred as the fans applauded them from the bleachers. Most of the players were gathered in the end zone in which freshman corner Emmanuel Forbes put an exclamation point on MSU's 44-34 victory with an interception as time expired. 

Leach was somewhere near the 50 yard line doing an interview for CBS. He joked that his team settled for playing LSU because "New England, Green Bay, and the Chiefs already had somebody scheduled.” The post-game celebration in his first victory as a Mississippi State's coach was a whirlwind. 

"I kind of played it by ear, really," Leach said. "I just sort of followed along. If another guy was doing something, I did it, pretty much. Hopefully it didn't get me in trouble. Like my mom said, if somebody tells you to jump over a cliff are you going to do it? Well, sometimes I did ya know." 

There were no cliffs to jump over at Tiger Stadium. A few players leaned over the wall to show their supporters some love, but that was as crazy as it got on that front. Leach's mom would probably be proud. 

So would Costello's. 

The graduate transfer from Stanford ran wildly over the field, waving a towel back and forth and up in the air toward the fans while stopping to hug any teammates who came up to him. There were a lot of them. Costello set an SEC record for passing yards in a single game with 623, after all. 

Before he became the first SEC quarterback to ever throw for 600-plus yards in a game, he bested Dak Prescott's program record of 508 yards. When Costello met Prescott earlier this year while training in southern California, he never imagined he'd break his Mississippi State record so easily in his first game in maroon and white. 

"I'm speechless about everything that happened today," Costello said. "If you would have told me a year ago today I'd be sitting here, it's just crazy." 

Leach and Costello had both never worn maroon and white in game action until today. Actually, Leach wore all black while his players donned maroon jerseys and helmets and white pants. The victory made Leach giddy enough to comment on his wardrobe in his post-game press conference. 

Unprompted, of course. 

"I had this thing on mainly because I wanted to look like a reverend or a priest, especially since I have this here right in the middle of the collar," Leach said as he referenced his COVID-19 protective face covering. "So I shoot for that a little bit... But I'm a little more sweaty under here than you might think. It's a good thing we have social distancing on the plane so it will probably negate some of the complaints." 

The plane ride was probably just fine. 

On a more serious note, Leach and Costello arrived at Mississippi State together this year with the former keen on prolonging his coaching career in a new conference and the latter looking to end his playing career with his best season yet. 

They both took serious strides in their respective endeavors Saturday.

Both did things they have never done in college football before as well. For Costello, it was obviously throwing for as many yards as he did. The previous SEC record held by Georgia's Eric Zeier stood for 27 years. Not even LSU's Joe Burrow accomplished what Costello did during his unmatched 2019 Heisman Trophy-winning season. 

LSU fans got to see it all last year. Well, almost. They didn't get to see a quarterback pass for over 600 yards. But they saw it Saturday. 

For Leach, it was beating a top 10 foe on the road. He had never done that in his coaching career until Saturday. Not in 10 seasons at Texas Tech and eight at Washington State. It only took one game at Mississippi State. 

Leach and Costello have nine more regular season opportunities to make more magic together too. And they both think they can do even better than they did against the defending national champs in their house – the house where opponents' dreams are supposed to die and their fans are supposed to leave unhappily. 

They can't wait to try. 

"God, I don't know why I'm kind of conditioned to think about all the stuff we left out there," Costello said. "It's amazing to feel that way. But it was a special days for a lot of guys who have worked extremely hard." 

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Contact Tyler Horka at thorka@gannett.com. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!