STARKVILLE — Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen started watching a videotape of the University of South Carolina’s offense and wondered if he had put in a tape of his guys.
The Bulldogs third-year coach preached Monday that fans who show up to Davis Wade Stadium at 11:21 a.m. today (WCBI) to watch MSU take on No. 15 South Carolina will see teams very similar in style.
Mullen has created an atmosphere of winning the battle on the ground and grinding out victories with special teams and defense. Today, he and the Bulldogs will match up against coach Steve Spurrier, who has adapted the fun-and-gun mantra he perfected at the University of Florida and is more comfortable handing the football to sophomore Marcus Lattimore, one of the nation’s best tailbacks.
“They’re a running football team, a power run football team,” Mullen said. “They’ve got a top tailback. You just see them run a lot of that spread option offense. You’ve got to stop the run no matter who is at quarterback.”
Lattimore, who is on the watch list for the Walter Camp, Maxwell, Doak Walker postseason awards, is averaging 5 yards per carry. Lattimore rushed for 102 yards last week in a 54-3 victory against the University of Kentucky, but Spurrier said the offense didn’t give his running back as much help as he needs.
“I’m thinking the holes aren’t there,” Spurrier said. “They just aren’t there. We’ve not blocked very well the last several games. He had a couple of good runs the other day.”
Mullen said earlier this week in his SEC teleconference that it will require multiple tacklers to lock up Lattimore near the line of scrimmage because the preseason All-America selection will win one-on-one matchups.
Even though MSU (3-3, 0-3 Southeastern Conference) is winless in the league, Spurrier still sees MSU as a candidate for an upset, which is why he prepared his team this week to avoid a letdown.
South Carolina (5-1, 3-1) controls its destiny to win the Eastern Division and advance to the SEC title game in Atlanta, while MSU needs a victory against a ranked league opponent to improve its chances of receiving a bid to a major bowl game.
“They talked about trying to win the (SEC) West this year,” Spurrier said. “They talked about going to Atlanta to play for the SEC Championship. Now they’re talking about getting to a January bowl game. They still think they have a good team.”
Most of the focus at MSU this week has centered on which quarterback will take a majority of the snaps. The questions arose last week after sophomore Tyler Russell came off the bench to replace starter Chris Relf and rally MSU to a 21-3 victory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Mullen hasn’t tipped his hand as to who will start today. He also didn’t make any of the team’s quarterbacks available to the media this week.
“I preach to all of them they need to be the starting quarterback every week,” Mullen said. “Whoever steps on the field or in the huddle needs to be the starting quarterback because you have to perform that way. We practice like that from spring ball to preseason all the way through. We expect all of the quarterbacks who are taking the reps to act like they are the (starter).”
South Carolina defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson has decided not
to complicate the game plan for Relf and/or Russell.
“They’re going to run more with (Relf) in there and they’re going to throw more with (Russell). It’s not a secret,” Johnson said. “We know the routes they run. We know the protections. You just have to have a little different mind-set when you’re on the field. We can’t change all the calls. The game plan is what it is.”
Regardless of who plays quarterback, MSU will need its offensive line to play well against one of the nation’s best pass rushes. The combination of senior defensive ends Melvin Ingram and freshman Jadeveon Clowney have produced an SEC-leading 13 sacks this season.
“They have so much talent at defensive end,” Mullen said. “You look at their guys (and) they’re bringing in the No. 1 high school player in the country (Clowney) off the bench as a changeup. They can create mismatches along the line by putting two ends on the field that somebody’s got a mismatch because they’ve got a lot of talent on the defensive line.”
NOTE: The last time MSU lost four straight conference games is 2006. That completed a run by coach Sylvester Croom in which the Bulldogs lost 20 of their past 24 league contests.
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