The Mississippi A&M defense had no answer to Walker Leach.

The Tennessee football captain, who split time between halfback, defensive end and kicker, twice on end-around runs scored in front of what the Knoxville Journal & Tribune called a "comparatively small crowd" at a race track-turned-gridiron in north Memphis on Nov. 16, 1907.

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The Vols won, 11-4 in the first-ever meeting between Tennessee and what would become Mississippi State. The two teams were Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association foes then. A little more than 25 years later, they were SEC members.

Tennessee and Mississippi State have only played sparingly since that day in Memphis. They will meet for the 47th time on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) at Neyland Stadium on the Vols' 100th Homecoming game.

The games that have been played in between have largely gone in Tennessee's favor. The Vols hold a 29-16-1 edge in the series that has been played in Knoxville, Starkville and Memphis. In fact, more games in the series have taken place in Memphis (14) than the Bulldogs' home field in Starkville (10).

The last time Tennessee and Mississippi State played in Memphis was 1979, a game the Vols' lost, 28-9. Games have been played on campus ever since with Saturday marking the 22nd meeting in Knoxville.

There have been some memorable clashes at all three sites, though and even one in the SEC Championship Game that propelled Tennessee to the BCS National Championship Game in 1998.

Here is a closer look at the all-time series.

Who: Mississippi State (2-5, 0-4 SEC) at No. 7 Tennessee (7-1, 4-1)

When: Saturday, Nov. 9 | 7 p.m. ET

Where: Neyland Stadium | Knoxville

TV: ESPN (Dave Pasch, play-by-play; Dusty Dvoracek, analyst; Taylor McGregor, reporter)

Series: 47th all-time meeting (Tennessee leads, 29-16-1)

In Knoxville: Tennessee, 14-7-0

In Starkville: Tennessee, 5-5-0

In Memphis: 9-4-1

The Tennessee-Mississippi State game marked a turning point in the Vols' 2019 season six years ago.

After opening the season with a disappointing loss to Georgia State at Neyland Stadium, Tennessee was drudging towards a losing campaign in then-head coach Jeremy Pruitt's second season.

The Georgia State debacle was followed with an overtime loss to BYU, an uninspiring win over Chattanooga and back-to-back routs at the hands of Florida and Georgia.

The Bulldogs came to Knoxville as a road favorite over the 1-3 Vols, but Tennessee's secondary intercepted three passes and Tyler Byrd put the game away with a touchdown catch with 2:35 left to win 20-10.

The Vols went on to win six of their next seven games, including a come-form-behind triumph of Indiana in the Gator Bowl, though the fall out of an NCAA investigation into Pruitt's recruiting violation later stripped Tennessee of those wins.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Oct. 3, 1964) — Maybe Paul Davis felt like he had nothing to lose.

The Mississippi State head coach had overseen three-straight losses heading into its bout with Tennessee and it's young first-year coach Doug Dickey at Crump Stadium in Memphis.

With a little more than three minutes left, Davis tried to end that skid with a gamble. It didn't pay off.

After the Vols took a second half lead off of a dazzling new formation the Bulldogs defense likely didn't expect. Hal Wantland at tailback and Art Galiffa was at quarterback for the Statue of Liberty play that went to Wantlad for a 13-yard go-ahead touchdown run.

"We put that play in just this week," Dickey told reporters afterward. "Our guys timed it just perfectly."

Mississippi State answered, capping a scoring drive with a 3-yard run from Dan Bland to pull the Bulldogs within an extra point with 3:18 remaining. A tie was within reach, but the Bulldogs opted to go for two, but Ashby Cook's pass to the end zone, intended for Hoyle Granger that would have given Mississippi State the lead, fell incomplete and Tennessee held on to win, 14-13.

The victory was the Vols' first in SEC play under Dickey, who just four years lead the program to its first conference title in more than a decade.

"We needed a team effort and we got a team effort," Dickey said. "This was a big victory for us."

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Oct. 23, 1971) — Jim Maxwell had played the part of nearly every quarterback in the SEC. on the afternoon of Oct. 23, 1971 at Memphis Memorial Stadium, he got to play himself.

Maxwell, Tennessee's fifth-year signal caller who had mostly starred in that role for the scout team, was one of the headliners of the No. 18 Vols' narrow escape of Mississippi State.

After moving up from the scout team in the week leading up to the game, Maxwell didn't have to do too much. What he did do was not make mistakes, instead handing the ball to Curt Watson 29 times for 127 yards.

"I've pretended to be Archie Manning and Scott Hunter and John Reaves and Pat Sullivan," Maxwell said. "I've been them all at one time or another in practice, but today I got to be myself. I got to be Jim Maxwell. It feels good."

Tennessee's offense didn't score, but its run-heavy approach kept the ball out of the hands of the Bulldogs' offense.

When Mississippi State did have the ball, Vols' All-American linebacker Jackie Walker intercepted it and took it the other way for Tennessee's lone touchdown.

The biggest difference was George Hunt. The Vols' ever-consistent kicker booted a then-school record 51-yard field goal that gave Tennessee the lead for good in a 10-7 victory.

"And how about old George Hunt?," Watson said. "He still hasn't missed that first kick. When you talk about consistency, you're talking about George."

That consistency--literally--kick-started the Vols to a 7-0 finish, including a 31-11 thumping of No. 5 Penn State in the final game of the regular season and a narrow 14-13 win over Arkansas in the Liberty Bowl inside the same stadium two months later.

Hunt was the difference in that one, too, knocking through a game-winning extra point late.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Sept. 21, 1991) — Tennessee's offense was nearing a program record.

The Vols had run more than 90 plays, much of which accounted for their 500-plus yard performance up until the late fourth quarter against Mississippi State at Neyland Stadium.

Yet as time was ticking away, it was the No. 23 Bulldogs leading and on the doorstep of scoring a major upset of No. 6 Tennessee.

The Vols, playing in defense of the SEC title the year before in week 3 of the 1991 season, led 17-3 at one point before Mississippi State scored three touchdowns to take the lead in the second half.

A field goal had trimmed the deficit to five, but with inside of two minutes to go, the Vols needed a touchdown. Andy Kelly faked a hand off and then dropped back on third down, keeping his eyes downfield even as the pocket quickly collapsed around him.

Just as a Mississippi State defender came crashing down on him from behind, Kelly flipped a pass from just around the 15-yard line to the end zone. It floated through the air for a moment and then landed safely into the hands of tight end Mark Adams.

Tennessee had the score that it needed--and the lead.

In a game defined by comebacks, the Vols' come-from-behind act proved better in a 26-24 win. They went on to win the league for the third-straight year.

"I'm glad Mississippi State is getting out of town," Tennessee head coach Johnny Majors said. "I've been around some hard games and all kinds of games, and I've never been more excited to see one get over than this one."

ATLANTA (Dec. 5, 1998) — Tennessee had pulled off one escape after the other, but near the halfway point of the fourth quarter at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, the Vols needed one more.

Kevin Prentiss darted past Tennessee's special teams on his way to an 83-yard punt return for touchdown to give Mississippi State the lead with 8:43 left, putting the unbeaten Vols on the ropes again.

It was a familiar spot for Tennessee, which needed a field goal as time expired on the road at Syracuse, overtime against Florida and a fumble vs. Arkansas just to get to this stage. So when Tee Martin, Tennessee's quarterback that had bided his time behind Peyton Manning the previous three years, stepped back on the field and trailing, there was no panic.

Instead, Martin lobbed a 46-yard touchdown pass to Peerless Price down the sideline for a touchdown that put the Vols back in the lead. Just for good measure in a one-score game, Martin passed for his second touchdown with five minutes left, this one to Cedrick Wilson to complete a 24-14 win for Tennessee's second-straight SEC crown and a spot in the national championship game.

Martin finished 15-of-32 passing for 206 yards and two scores while Price caught six passes for 97 yards and one touchdown in an MVP outing.

Less than a month later, Martin led the Vols to a 23-16 victory over No. 2 Florida State in the Fiesta Bowl at Sun Devils Stadium in Tempe, Arizona to catapult Tennessee to the top of the college football world for the first in 31 years.

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