STARKVILLE — Mississippi State’s late offensive woes were its undoing against Kentucky; offensive success throughout buried Auburn, and complete offensive ineptitude was to blame for the loss to LSU. Yet, all of those games have something in common: it was close at the end of the first quarter, and because of it the second quarter went relatively well.
If No. 22 MSU (7-4, 3-4 Southeastern Conference) is to win the Egg Bowl 6:30 p.m. Thursday (ESPN), there is reason to believe getting off to a strong start can play a big factor. MSU has outscored its opponents by 102 points in the first half while Ole Miss (5-6, 1-6 SEC) has been outscored by 25 points in the same stretch.
A good bit of MSU’s statistical dominance in first half is influenced by dominating Stephen F. Austin (35-3 at halftime), Louisiana-Lafayette (21 unanswered second-quarter points) and Louisiana Tech (31-3 at halftime). Against SEC competition, MSU has a scoring margin of 19-27 in the first quarter, with 14 of those points allowed coming from Alabama; in the second quarter, MSU leads 34-33, seven of those points from the top-ranked Crimson Tide.
One reason for the second-quarter success is what it accomplishes in the first quarter.
All offensive playcallers develop a script to start games with, and MSU head coach Joe Moorhead is no different: he said depending on the game he will go anywhere from 16 to 24 plays on his script, with flexibility to break it when a third down comes.
“We try to show the formations we have and want to see how people are defending us more than anything,” Moorhead said. “We’re getting through our formations, give some guys some plays that give them an opportunity to be successful, then when you see how guys are defending you, you can generate some explosive plays based on that.
“I think most people would say the same things.”
With that being an inspiring factor in the scripting process, it is easy to see how the first-quarter script leads to second-quarter success, given the information MSU can gather. Wide receivers coach/offensive coordinator Luke Getsy believes there is a fine line to ride in that regard.
“What the guys feel good about executing is always important. The openers, it’s really important that you do things that you feel good about your players executing at a high level,” Getsy said. “You’re not going to call a play just to see how they line up, you’re not going to do that, but that’s part of it. You make sure you take note, because when you call a play you have two or three things in the back of your mind that go with that play. You want to collect that data as fast as you can.”
On the other side, MSU defensive coordinator Bob Shoop is well aware of what opponents are trying to accomplish in those opening series. The plan he has formulated to combat it has worked: if not for the Alabama game, MSU would be averaging 1.7 first-quarter points allowed per game. Even with the Alabama game factored in, that number is 3 per game.
“Thursday as a staff, we watch two-minute, we watch four-minute, we watch sudden change, we watch all their trick plays and we don’t watch all the first 15, but we have a study on the team’s first 15 to 20 plays,” Shoop said. “A lot of times, an offensive play caller’s going to line up in formation A, B or C to see how you’re going to line up to it. Every play caller has certain tendencies in those first 15 plays.”
Coaching staffs expend a lot of energy on the chess match of a game’s first plays, and players are clued into the results of those studies, linebacker Erroll Thompson said. But once the game starts, it becomes a matter of attitude.
As senior safety Johnathan Abram put it, “You have to start fast and finish strong.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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