Saturday will mark Dan Mullen's fourth contest against LSU as the head coach at Mississippi State.

Mullen has played the Tigers tight in two of his previous meetings including coming up inches shy of a victory during his first season in Starkville. With the Bulldogs reeling from two straight losses, a win this weekend over the No. 9 team nationally would go a long way in restoring their confidence.

"Our kids take this on as a big challenge," Mullen said. "We still haven't closed the gap where I want. We still haven't come up with a win. We have to finally take that next step to push us over the top to get a win against LSU. Obviously everybody knows LSU is loaded with talent from top to bottom but we have some pretty good talent here and our kids play hard. When you play hard you're going to have opportunities to win games and we've done that over the past couple of years even though we haven't come out on top."

Mullen's only trip to Tiger Stadium with MSU resulted in a 29-7 loss in 2010. The Bulldogs held LSU out of the end zone for the first two quarters before surrendering two touchdowns in the third.

He understands what obstacles are in front of his squad as they travel to "Death Valley" for a night encounter where Tiger head coach Les Miles is 36-2 under the lights there.

"Obvious it's a challenge anytime you have to play down in Baton Rouge on a Saturday night," Mullen said. "It's a tough challenge and a tough environment to go play into."

The Tigers have had five different running backs with 40 or more carries this season. Although LSU's rotation features backs with similar builds Mullen believes each possesses different skill sets.



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