STARKVILLE — Mississippi State University football coach Dan Mullen plans to conduct his team’s first scrimmage of the spring at noon Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium as a quiz of his playbook.
The intra-squad scrimmage, which is free and open to the public, will reveal what the Bulldogs have learned in practice after six days of work in the base offense and defense. This scrimmage will test “who can process it and know what to do,” according to Mullen.
“Today was the last big installation day, and you can start to see some of the younger guys start to hit the wall a little bit in terms of figuring out what’s going on,” Mullen said Thursday after practice. “It was a day we put in new stuff while we were still reviewing the old stuff.”
MSU could debut an offense that is geared to be more of a pro-style attack. Rising senior Tyler Russell is expected to see more action than in previous years. He expects the scrimmage to be a point of reference the Bulldogs will use to weed out things from a thick playbook.
“Typically in a scrimmage, you want to see everything as a coach and a player,” Russell said. “The reason is it’s visual evidence to show how this set, play, or throw looks against a defensive look. It’s kind of about trial and error (and) what you’re not comfortable with.”
The scrimmage Saturday will be one of two this month before the Maroon-White spring game at 1 p.m. April 20.
On the defense, new defensive coordinator Geoff Collins, who had the play-calling duties for the loss to Northwestern University in the 2013 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., said he may evaluate effort over execution in what will be first starting assignments for several of the Bulldogs’ less-experienced players.
“It’s not an exam for me or our unit, per se, but it’s about finding out who wants to fly to the football,” Collins said. “I don’t want to cloud their minds too much before this scrimmage with concepts or a game plan because Saturday is all about feeling that juice again inside the stadium. Sometimes kids need that energy without the stress of worrying about mistakes.”
Collins says he expects to rotate players on all three levels of the defense. He has stressed he wants players to function at high level on the fly regardless of the personnel or situational formation changes.
“We’ve worked guys in and out on different downs or different packages all spring,” Collins said. “I do not want guys to feel comfortable thinking this one thing is just my role. I want guys to learn all of the line positions, all of the backer spots, and be able to work with all the defensive backs. After that, it’s our job as coaches to figure out where to put them, but I don’t want that decision to made easily because we’re not multiple.”
Mullen said he like to see underclassmen showcase what they’ve learned and make the case they are ready to contribute.
“I want to see continued improvement from the older guys, and the younger guys need to show they can make some plays in the stadium,” Mullen said. “It’s a totally different deal in that stadium even if it’s empty for a scrimmage like this. I want to see how some guys react to that.”
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