Mississippi State football kicks off Southeastern Conference play at 11 a.m. Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium.
The Bulldogs (2-1) will host LSU (2-1) in a rematch of last year’s game in Baton Rouge, a 44-34 upset for MSU over the defending national champions on Sept. 26, 2020.
The Dispatch spoke with LSU beat writer Wilson Alexander of The Advocate/The Times-Picayune to get his thoughts on the Tigers. Alexander is in his third season covering LSU football.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Like Mississippi State, LSU is 2-1 through three games. What are your overall thoughts on the Tigers so far?
Alexander: This is really a team that is better now than it was at the start of the year but still has a ways to go in terms of how competitive it’s going to be in the SEC. It’s kind of a big game to determine that and show they can be better than they were last year. There’s still a lot of lingering issues that you saw last season on the defensive side. They have a chance to improve if they can defend crossing routes and clean up the missed assignments that plagued them so much last year. Against UCLA, they didn’t. This is going to be a big game to determine whether or not they have. Offensively, it’s sort of been a slow go figuring things out, but they seem to have clicked at least a little bit this last weekend against Central Michigan.
Ed Orgeron said last year’s loss to MSU was “embarrassing,” and I’m sure he’s not alone. How motivated does this LSU team seem to be to make up for that?
Alexander: We’ll have a better sense of that as we go through the week, but you can tell throughout the LSU world that there are emotional scars left over from that game. The first game after winning a national championship, and they allowed an SEC record in passing yards, and everything that happened in that game just continued to linger throughout the whole year. It showed up again a little bit against UCLA, particularly on the defensive side. That term “crossing routes” just makes people shudder down here. Orgeron has sort of cautioned against using that revenge as motivation, but it’s clear that they want to get that taste out of their mouth from last year. If they’re able to go over to Starkville and win, it’ll help close that chapter at least a little bit in some ways from last year — help move on from that loss.
Andre Anthony is out for the year with a leg injury. How does that affect this LSU defense, and with Anthony out, how do they match up against Mississippi State’s offense and the Air Raid?
Alexander: It’s heartbreaking for Andre, who was a sixth-year senior. It took him a few years to really work his way into the starting lineup. Not until last season was he a starter, and he was having a good year — 3.5 sacks, four tackles for loss. He returned a fumble for a touchdown and was really playing well. He was also just sort of the emotional leader of this defense — a captain, a member of the team’s leadership council — so very easy to root for. Without him, they’re going to shift Maason Smith, who is a five-star freshman who has been playing pretty well — he had three sacks against McNeese a couple weeks back — to defensive end. They had him in the interior of the line. He’s 6-foot-6 and 290 pounds and can certainly have the size to hold up down there, but his height was almost kind of getting in the way at times — tough for him to get down underneath blocks. He might be a better left defensive end than sort of what Orgeron said he would be. They’re going to have to rotate Maason, Ali Gaye — who’s going to return this week — and BJ Ojulari, who leads the country in sacks. The defensive line and their ability to rush the passer is really the strength of this defense, and the Air Raid can kind of take that away with how quickly the ball gets out. It’ll be interesting to see if Mississippi State’s able to neutralize that aspect of this defense, or if LSU’s able to get after the passer again. But if they are able to get after the passer, they’ll have to do it without Andre.
How has LSU’s offense looked with Max Johnson at quarterback, and what do you expect from that unit against a solid Mississippi State defense?
Alexander: Until this last game, they had not been good. The offense was just discombobulated. It was not moving fast. Even against McNeese State — which is the FCS opponent that you’re supposed to be able to handle very easily — they were struggling. They were putting up a fair amount of points but just did not look like they were clicking at all. Against Central Michigan, they were getting really focused on going up tempo. They used that to their advantage, and they were able to get out to a really early lead. It looked like they were doing what they were supposed to do against Central Michigan when you’re LSU. That was a positive for them. There’s still a lot for this offense to clean up, though. Their run blocking has not been good. They’re not running the ball at all. Their pass protection is suspect. Part of that maybe has to do with the health of the offensive line. They really haven’t practiced together much at all because of injuries, but they finally have most of their guys back. Left tackle is still a bit of a question mark. They seem to have turned the corner a little bit this past weekend, but they still have a ways to go in terms of what they’re doing.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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