STARKVILLE – The three letters that define the highlighted matchup of Saturday’s game at Davis Wade Stadium are N-F-L.
The common thought about the upcoming matchup Saturday (8 p.m., ESPN2) between the University of Tennessee wide receivers and the Mississippi State University secondary is all of the key players involved will be drafted and be playing in the National Football League on Sundays very soon.
Senior cornerback Jonathan Banks was a preseason All-America selection by six different publications, and along with senior Darius Slay has led the Bulldogs to the 11th-best scoring defense in the country, while holding opponents to under 200 yards passing per game.
Banks, an East Webster High School product, has been thrown at 24 times in man coverage, allowing just 15 catches for 108 yards (4.5 yards per game) and zero touchdowns, as well as intercepting three passes and breaking up two. Among active Football Bowl Subdivision players, Banks currently ranks first in career interception yards (274), second with 15 career interceptions, is tied for third with three interceptions returned for touchdowns along with ranking fifth in career interceptions per game (0.36).
“These guys are NFL guys,” University of Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley said about the MSU cornerback starters of Banks and Slay.
“There are not that many big-time corners out there who have the size, the athleticism and the instincts and these guys have it. They are good. You don’t that many interceptions by luck, you just don’t.”
Tennessee (3-2, 0-2) will travel to Starkville with the Southeastern Conference’s best passing offense while averaging 329.2 yards per game and a junior quarterback in Tyler Bray, which many prognosticators have being taken in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft.
“They’ll probably be the best (because) they got a really good quarterback in Tyler Bray,” Banks said Monday. “I got a lot of respect to play. He gets those guys in position to make plays. It’s exactly what Tyler Russell is doing and I think they’re the same guy. (Bray) might be playing a little longer than Tyler. It’s football and it’s what we’re here to do.”
Bray has said he won’t be afraid to challenge either of the MSU cornerbacks down the field and that could result in a high risk-high reward situation that Bray’s statistics highly suggest. Brey averages 8.2 yards per completion and leads an offense that has put up 2,533 total yards, which is the most by any Tennessee offense through five games in school history.
However, Bray’s six interceptions this season have all come when Tennessee is either tied or down in a game and five of the giveaways have come against the pair of SEC defenses they’ve already seen and lost to (University of Florida, University of Georgia).
“We’re not going to hold anything back,” Bray said Monday. “We don’t care if we’re playing (Baltimore Ravens All-Pro safety) Ed Reed or any of those guys. We’re going to go after it.”
Bray’s favorite targets down the field in the Volunteers pro-style vertical passing game are junior receivers Justin Hunter and Cordarrelle Patterson. Bray is second in the SEC in passing with 1,582 yards and 14 touchdowns, while Hunter (33 catches, 456 yards, four touchdowns) and Patterson (21 catches, 290 yards and two touchdowns) are third and 12th in the league in receiving yards.
“When you look at Tennessee the first thing that jumps out to you is the explosiveness of their offense,” MSU head coach Dan Mullen said.
“They have NFL-type players at every position. They can put up a lot of points and they have put up a lot of points a bunch of points. I think they played Florida and Georgia in the SEC so far and put up a bunch of points on both teams, so they obviously can score a lot.”
Banks tried to downplay the matchup with Tennessee’s receivers as a potential NFL-type matchup when he talked with local reporters this week.
“All the national attention I’m getting, I don’t really care about it,” Banks said. “In the end, we can say we proved everybody wrong. We’ll be prepared for whatever.”
However Slay, who is quickly moving up NFL scouts draft boards said Tuesday he considered the battle as an opportunity to put No. 19 MSU (5-0, 2-0 in SEC) on a national stage.
“We shut them down,” Slay said. “There are no questions asked then.”
Saturday’s matchup at Davis Wade Stadium represents simply a strength vs. strength matchup as MSU feels incredibly confident in the secondary, which includes starting safeties Nickoe Whitley and Corey Broomfield, being able to showcase their skills on a national level.
“If all of our defensive backs are good players like we think they are, they’re going to have to show it Saturday,” MSU cornerbacks coach Melvin Smith said. “Tennessee has some excellent receivers and I’m mean some of the best I’ve ever seen in college football. You order receivers out of a magazine, that’s what you get. They have the prototype and they’re really good looking college football players.”
So what does Smith think is the key to stopping Hunter and Patterson on Saturday night, you have to go back to the farm he grew up on in Taylorville.
“To me, it’s about position,” Smith said. “I grew up on a farm and we only had X amount of acres. When our cows and hogs got out on somebody else’s land, they were out of position because we had a fence. You play defense by building a fence. What I want to see is us in position — that’s so important to me. It’s not about who you play, it’s about positioning yourself so that you can do your job.That’s will be my emphasis this week and all the time so I know we’re in good position.”
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