LEXINGTON, Ky.
Last year, this crossroads came on a September evening in Auburn, Alabama.
The pivotal point came when a team with promise showed itself to be something other than flawless: a 30-point win over a Southeastern Conference West Division rival devolved into consecutive losses by a combined 67 points. The weeks to come would determine which it would be remembered as: promising or flawed.
Today, the Mississippi State football team is at the same crossroads.
Saturday’s 28-7 loss sent MSU tumbling down the polls, nine spots in the Associated Press poll to No. 23 and down to No. 19 in the Amway coaches poll. More importantly, it presented MSU with three specific issues to solve as the emotional matchup with Dan Mullen and Florida (3-1) looms.
Possibly the most damning problem is the one that’s easiest to fix: penalties. The Bulldogs (3-1) understand 16 for 135 is far too many, and just minutes after the game they knew how they would go about fixing it.
“It’s uncalled for for our defense to get that many penalties,” defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons said.
“They’re very fixable. It’s all discipline. Very fixable,” wide receiver Osirus Mitchell added.
The other two issues aren’t as easy.
The first was personified by Benny Snell Jr. His 165 yards and four touchdowns sent a defense — the same defense that allowed just 255 rushing yards over its three games — from second in the SEC in rushing defense to ninth.
On this front, there is reason for optimism. The first reason is in the numbers: Snell racked up 101 of his 165 yards on four carries, including his 36- and 23-yard touchdown runs. Without those four carries, Snell Jr. would have averaged a pedestrian 3.04 yards per carry.
Granted, not all of Snell Jr.’s explosive plays were random. Snell Jr. had some seams created for him by missed gaps, and defensive leadership believes they allowed those miscues to snowball on them.
“We beat ourselves up a lot,” junior defensive back Brian Cole said. “We really beat ourselves. Kentucky was making plays, too, but we let that get the best of us.
“Other than the fact that we were beating ourselves up and costing us penalties, we let that get in our heads. Instead of letting that get in our heads, we let ourselves get in our heads.”
The third issues Kentucky presented was the most jarring, given head coach Joe Moorhead’s reputation: MSU ran for a measly 56 yards and needed 28 carries to do it, exactly two yards per carry. Factoring out sacks doesn’t help much: three sacks set MSU back 23 yards, but even with those removed MSU still only averaged 3.16 yards per carry.
It bears pointing out that down-and-distance situations didn’t give MSU much of an opportunity to establish a running game. MSU ran 18 plays on second down; on 11 of them, MSU had eight or more yards to gain and had 14 or more yards to gain on six of them, forcing MSU into passing situations early and often.
Even when unencumbered by down-and-distance, MSU’s numbers were lacking. It averaged 3.9 yards per carry on first down and only converted on half (3-of-6) of its third-and-short situations, those with four or fewer yards to gain. This is where the Bulldogs’ development efforts over the next week are the most needed.
“We just weren’t getting the push on the offensive line we needed,” quarterback Nick Fitzgerald said. “We were shooting ourselves in the foot every chance we got. Not going to win like that.”
The film from Saturday reveals a few ways MSU will not win and very little time to fix them. After the most emotional week of the season comes two games against its competition for No. 1 contender to Alabama, against Auburn on Oct. 6 and at LSU on Oct. 20.
With Saturday’s experience, MSU knows with no doubt what needs to be fixed to succeed in that pivotal stretch. Now we wait to see what can be accomplished in six days.
Brett Hudson is the Mississippi State beat writer for The Dispatch. You can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @Brett_Hudson.
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