Mississippi State jumps back into Southeastern Conference play on Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium.
The Bulldogs (3-1, 0-1 SEC) will host Texas A&M (3-1, 1-0 SEC) at 3 p.m. Saturday in Starkville.
For a primer on the Aggies, The Dispatch caught up with Texas A&M beat writer Travis L. Brown of The Eagle in Bryan-College Station, Texas. Brown is now in his seventh season covering Texas A&M.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What were the expectations for Texas A&M coming into the 2022 season? How has a 3-1 start — with the loss not being what most people expected — affected those expectations?
Brown: You kind of have to go back two seasons. In 2020, A&M was 9-1 and won the Orange Bowl and was just left out of the College Football Playoff. The trajectory seemed to be going sky high for them. It took a step back last season as they struggled to find good quarterback play. With the recruiting class that A&M brought in over the offseason and some veterans at different positions, I think people expected to see that step back in the right direction this year for the Aggies. I think tangibly what that looks like is for sure a double-digit-win season and then potentially be knocking on the College Football Playoff door again. That was before the season started. I think that loss to Appalachian State makes the College Football Playoff a little bit more of a pipe dream. They’d have to run the table in the SEC, probably win the SEC championship to have a shot at that. That just seems so far fetched at this point in the season. I think the ability to still finish with double-digit wins is there, and that would be definitely a step in the right direction. They’ve got to get past the eight-win mark for sure.
How has quarterback Max Johnson looked since taking over the starting job?
Brown: I think he has stepped into a tough situation with what was going on early in the first two games. I think he’s had a lot more poise in the pocket than Haynes King had early in the year. That veteran experience at LSU has shown through. If you look at the stat lines in comparing the two, there haven’t necessarily been a whole lot of super impressive play from Johnson so far — just over 100 yards passing in both of the games he’s played so far, not a great completion percentage. I think a lot of that has to do with an offensive line that has struggled to give him good protection this season and a young wide receiver corps that has dropped some balls, that has not necessarily run the best routes. He’s a little bit hamstrung back there. I think he’s shown that he has good quarterbacking skills; it’s going to be up to the whole unit meshing together in order to really have a successful offensive showing.
Is A&M’s defense good enough to stop Will Rogers and the Air Raid? What’s the game plan for the Aggies defensively?
Brown: That’s probably the question of the game. Texas A&M brings in D.J. Durkin, the new defensive coordinator, who has a lot of experience with Mike Leach because he was the defensive coordinator at Ole Miss. He was 2-0 against Mississippi State in his time at Ole Miss. He definitely knows how to play Mike Leach’s Air Raid. You go back to 2020, A&M beats Mississippi State with Mike Elko as defensive coordinator. It’s the first time they really used a three-man front and dropped seven in coverage. It works really well. Fast-forward to last year: They basically ran the exact same game plan, and I believe it was Will Rogers if not Mike Leach who kind of called them out on it and said, ‘Hey, they just tried to come out with the exact same thing they did last year. We scouted that. We looked at the film, and we had a game plan against that.’ They were able to light up A&M’s defense in that game. It’ll be interesting to see how different things look. The Aggies have shown that they can have a little bit of success with a three-man front. It’ll be interesting to see if Mississippi State goes with a little bit more of a run game. Although A&M is one of the better pass defenses in the country and in the SEC, they’ve struggled in run defense.
If you’re comfortable making a prediction, how do you see Saturday’s game playing out?
Brown: This is a tough one. I’ve picked against A&M in the last two games because while they’ve won games since Appalachian State, they’ve had some glaring holes on both sides of the ball that you feel like as the level of competition rose, those would get exploited. But somehow A&M has managed to find ways to win games and win them ugly — win them while not playing their best football. Arkansas, it was a lucky bounce off the goalpost on an Arkansas field goal and fumble recovery and return on defense. Defensive points have helped the Aggies out a lot. I believe it’s a three-point spread in favor of Mississippi State. I still think I’m going to go against A&M this time just basically because of their being on the road. It’s their first true road test. I think the home-field advantage might give Mississippi State a little bit of an edge, but it’s as close to a push right now as I could guess in this game.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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