TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The question was answered emphatically at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday night: The Mississippi State University football team isn’t ready to compete with the nation’s elite programs.
Every possible adjective needed to describe worked just fine as the top-ranked University of Alabama walked away with a decisive 38-7 victory against MSU in a battle of Southeastern Conference unbeatens. The 31-point loss is the largest margin of defeat for MSU under fourth-year coach Dan Mullen.
“That all falls on me as a head coach that we have our guys in position to make plays, and tonight we didn’t do that,” Mullen said. “It’s amazing how the ball bounces to the team that plays hard.”
The Crimson Tide had a 179-40 yardage advantage in the run game and in the number of crunching hits they delivered on the quarterback.
Alabama (8-0, 5-0 SEC) also was faster judging from the 57-yard touchdown strike from quarterback AJ McCarron to wide receiver Kenny Bell that made it 14-0 just 12 minutes into the game.
MSU (7-1, 3-1) hadn’t allowed a play of more than 50 yards this season until McCarron planted his back foot and dropped a play-action throw over senior cornerback Johnthan Banks.
Alabama also executed better. MSU was 0-for-2 in the red zone and committed three turnovers. It battled consistent mistakes and miscues that prevented any thoughts of a comeback. In the second half, MSU fumbled a punt return and a kick return on back-to-back possessions.
“(Alabama) is number one for a reason,” Banks said. “They don’t make mistakes, they have a great quarterback, and their defense plays hard. I haven’t played a team like that since I’ve been in college.”
Seventeen minutes into the game MSU trailed 21-0 and Mullen didn’t have a situation to go the bag of tricks against the defending national champions. Alabama’s 24 first-half points marked the eighth consecutive time this season it has scored 20 or more points in the first half.
The result was a familiar refrain for MSU, which has been outscored 123-27 by Alabama in four games with Mullen as coach.
“Our guys are disappointed (because) they came in and expected to win,” Mullen said. “I’m sure nobody else probably out there expected us to win. Our fans, I love them, they believed in us. We didn’t believe, but our guys expected.”
In the only matchup in the country involving undefeated teams, Mullen tried to line up and compete against what arguably is the nation’s stingiest defense. That didn’t work, either.
There was no whacky A-3 formation, where the quarterback and center are the only players in the tackle box. MSU also didn’t attempt a fake punts. There also weren’t any signs of a reverse pass or gadget plays.
It likely didn’t matter.
Mullen and MSU used the loss, the program’s ninth in its past 10 contests against the Crimson Tide as a gauge for where it ranks among the nation’s elite.
“The things we have done in the past when we needed to respond, we responded to a point and didn’t finish it off tonight,” Mullen said.
In previous games against elite teams, Mullen had been on opposite ends of the spectrum on his play-calling philosophy.
Mullen, who now has a career record of 28-18 at MSU, on several occasions went to the bag of tricks (the A-3 formation vs. Alabama, a throw-back pass vs. the University of Georgia in 2010, or the ‘Tebow pass’ near the goal line two weeks ago vs. the University of Tennessee) or used inexperienced players in a quirky role (playing Dylan Favre at quarterback vs. Alabama, Georgia, and the University of Arkansas). The results proved been mixed at best.
“We’re in it to win it,” Mullen said Monday when asked about using trick plays in big games. “If that takes us having some deception plays or takes us taking some chances, we’ll do it. The one thing you don’t want to do in a big game is get too conservative. You want to let our guys go play and give them an opportunity the best they can to win the game.”
However, Mullen has also been more than basic on offense to control momentum against a top program. The best example came in 2010 when MSU didn’t throw a pass in the second half of a 10-7 victory at No. 22 University of Florida. The victory in Gainesville, Fla., is Mullen’s only victory in his last 11 attempts against a ranked opponent in The Associated Press poll.
The fact that MSU trailed by more than three scores before it could get comfortable in the second quarter prevented MSU from establishing its power run game. As a result, MSU was forced to rely more on the passing game, which left junior quarterback Tyler Russell vulnerable to a pass rush that inflicted a pounding even though it had only one sack.
“What I saw out of my quarterback tonight is toughness,” MSU senior offensive guard Tobias Smith said. “Tyler got hit and kept getting up and didn’t look any different one time in the huddle.”
The only tricky play call MSU used came on a third-and-goal situation from the Alabama 2-yard line. Linebacker Robert Lester intercepted Russell’s play-action pass in the end zone.
MSU will have to go back and evaluate how to take the next step as a program before it plays host to Texas A&M University on Saturday. Texas A&M rolled up more than 600 yards and 63 points this week in a victory at Auburn University.
“I think our team has done a great job handling the adversity of success, and now we’re going to see how we handle the adversity of failure,” Mullen said.
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