It is Day #79 in our counting down to 2025 kickoff, and we will recognize a pretty disparate pair of Bulldogs who wore those numbers. They are separated by some time, too, not to mention roles played.
We of sufficient seniority as Bulldog football fans know which #79 comes to immediate mind. He is none other than Glen Collins, one of the truly elite defensive linemen in program history and given what Mississippi State has turned out over the years this is saying something. He may not ring the same cowbells in current generations as names like Cox, Jones, and Sweat, but believe it: Glen could hold his own with all of 'em.
Then again he had to be elite to stand out on the 1980 and '81 Bulldog defensive fronts, playing alongside such greats at Tyrone Keys, Earnie Barnes, and Billy Jackson, and making life a little easier for the Johnie Cooks and Rob Fesmires and Larry Fridays.
A native of Jackson and one of Bob Tyler's terrific in-state signings, Collins was a force from freshman year. He was second-team All-SEC in 1980, then first-team as well as First-Team All-American in 1981. He had 205 total tackles with 26 sacks, and young fans also need reminding that stat was not quite the same as scored today.
But the greatest day of modern Bulldog football, at least up to 2014, was also an ultimate low for Collins. The '80 afternoon Mississippi State was preparing to play almighty Alabama, Collins learned his fiancé had murdered that morning in Jackson. Told he was free to take the game off, Collins refused and did his part in the still-epic 6-3 I Was There When State Beat The Bear contest.
A first-round draft pick of Cincinnati and 26th overall, Collins played four seasons with the Bengals and finished with single years at San Francisco and Indianapolis. A member of the Mississippi State Sports Hall of Fame as well as the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, Collins was inducted into the SEC Football Legends as Mississippi State's 2013 representative.
Our other #79 was day-ted last year as something of a special recognition, by chance another metro area native who made his way to Mississippi State. He being Evans Wilkerson, who wore those numbers all his five seasons as a Bulldog special teams regular.
Signed out of Jackson Academy as an offensive lineman he sat out the first fall in 2015, the earned his place on the kicking team as a redshirt and never gave it up. Wilkerson played in all 52 possible games from 2016-19, and even got some blocking snaps along the way. In fact as a senior he had more plays from-scrimmage than on placekicks, snapping the ball to a variety of quarterbacks.
That was in uniform. In the classroom, he graduated on-time with an accounting degree in 2018 and pursued a master's as well. Three times Wilkerson made the SEC's Academic Honor Roll.
The House settlement will over time make walk-ons a genuine rarity in football, if they are even allowed in fact. But let's take a moment to salute Wilkerson and all the voluntary Bulldogs who came before and after him for deeds done in Maroon and White.