The process of rebuilding a college football program has many important stops along the way.

It starts with simply just winning a couple of games, then progresses to winning the games they’re supposed to and then to winning games they’re not supposed to.

It’s all part of learning how to win. Mississippi State is stuck at the middle of those three (or worse depending on your view of the Florida loss), but they’re close to breaking into the final category.

ICYMI: Three reasons why No. 22 Texas fans should be worried about facing Mississippi State

“There’s without a doubt something to that,” Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby said on Monday. “I know for me and for us in this building, there’s been zero talk of last year. That’s not this year’s football team.

“There’s a lot of noise from what I’ve been told and through text messages that I receive, they’re incredibly supportive. I’m like, guys, we’re four and three, we’re two plays away from being six and one. We’re not, we’ve lost those games, we’ve been on the wrong side of them.”

After a 4-0 start, Mississippi State has lost three-straight and had chances of winning two of those games. But the Bulldogs are still learning how to win.

The final lesson usually comes in a close game against a higher-ranked team and requires either a last-minute, game-winning drive, or defensive stop or clock-chewing drive to run out the final minute(s).

If you’d like a more concrete example, check out our EA College Football 26 simulation of Saturday’s game between the Longhorns and Bulldogs.

How the simulated game plays out is exactly how a team shows it knows how to win.

Mississippi State took advantage of an interception that put the offense at Texas’s 15-yard line and held the Longhorns to field goals until the fourth quarter.

With the Bulldogs leading 14-6, Texas scored on long touchdown pass from Arch Manning to Ryan Wingo. But the Longhorns chose to kick a PAT instead of going for two and left a little more than two minutes on the clock.

Mississippi State never gave the ball back to Texas, running out the clock on a final drive to win 14-13.

If that happens in real life, something Lebby said at his Monday press conference really stands out.

“All is gonna be right in the world if we find a way to go win this one,” he said.