STARKVILLE — How a month changes things.
As the leaves have turned to orange and yellow-ish hues and pumpkins begin to be put up following Halloween festivities, a once-promising season in Starkville has all but turned sour.
Following a season-opening win over then-No. 6 LSU in Baton Rouge, Mississippi State has dropped four straight contests, most recently a 41-0 shutout against No. 2 Alabama on Saturday night.
So how did we get here? These stats may help to paint a picture:
Mississippi State’s zero points against No. 2 Alabama
Saturday, the Bulldogs notched a first for a Mike Leach-coached team: zero points.
Heading into this season, Leach had been held to three points on three separate occasions but never less. Twice MSU has fallen short of that mark this season with a two-point outing at Kentucky and another listless effort against an Alabama team it hasn’t beaten in 13 years.
As pressing, after totaling 44 points in the season opener, MSU has totaled just 30 points combined over its last four contests.
Leach has made a career out of offenses that make defensive backs’ heads spin. But in 2020, the air raid has dropped from flying at a comfortable 30,000 feet after the win at LSU to a nose dive into the deepest depths of the earth.
If the Bulldogs can’t find a way to muster offensive points the rest of the way, there’s little reason to believe they find another win all year.
146 passing yards against Alabama
Forgive me for harping on a loss to one of the most complete teams in America, but Saturday’s showing against the Crimson Tide was downright dreadful.
In eight seasons at Washington State, the Cougars led the nation in passing four separate times and never finished worse than ninth. How the times have changed.
In Saturday’s loss, the Bulldogs notched their fourth consecutive game in which their total passing output dipped from the previous outing. In all, MSU mustered just 20 (!!) yards passing in the first half en route to a 146-yard performance overall.
In 19 years as a head coach, the 146 passing yards marked the worst ever passing night by a Leach-coached team and was just the second time since 2000 one of his teams failed to reach the 200-yard plateau.
The overhaul from Joe Moorhead’s RPO-based scheme to an offense that averaged 54.6 attempts per game at Washington State in 2019 was always going to take time, but MSU has found a new low for a head coach whose offensive productivity spans five decades.
Mississippi State’s 28.1 percent third down conversion rate over the past four games
I’ve written at length about MSU’s struggles on third down this year, but as the Bulldogs continue to lose games, it remains a key reason why.
Since the win over LSU, MSU has converted just 18 of 64 third-down attempts for a conversion rate of 28.1 percent, while they currently rank No. 86 of the 103 teams that have played this fall and 12th in the Southeastern Conference in overall third down conversions this season. In the first half of Saturday’s loss to Alabama, the Bulldogs picked up just one first down and concluded the contest 2 of 15 on third down.
Leach has talked at length about the timing and rhythm at which the air raid needs to function, but the Bulldogs have failed to find any semblance of consistency offensively.
Over the past 16 seasons, Leach’s 14.54 percent three-and-out rate ranks No. 1 among head coaches with at least four years of experience. More recently, his offense had the fifth-lowest percentage of drives that resulted in the three-and-outs over the past three years.
But history damned in Starkville. Saturday, MSU went three-and-out on its first five possessions against the Crimson Tide and seven times overall.
MSU isn’t going to win games if it can’t score, but it’s also not going to score if it can’t convert on third down.
The offensive line ranks third-worst among Power Five conference teams in pass blocking, according to Pro Football Focus
It’s no secret Leach wants to throw the ball.
In five games this season, MSU hasn’t attempted less than 40 passes in a game and thrice hit the 60 pass mark. So why is it that all those passes aren’t adding up to more yards?
At its base level, quarterbacks K.J. Costello and Will Rogers aren’t throwing from a clean pocket.
Costello, who’s received the lion’s share of snaps at quarterback this year, ranked No. 8 nationally in the total number of dropbacks when under pressure this year according to Pro Football Focus, despite having been benched twice and suffering an undisclosed injury in the first half of Saturday’s loss to Alabama from which he didn’t return.
The former Stanford signal-caller also ranks 10th in the country among quarterbacks who’ve received 50 percent or more of their team’s snaps in the percentage of dropbacks when under pressure at 35.9 percent.
The majority of these issues fall on the offensive line, which currently sits as the third-worst pass blocking team in Power Five football and No. 96 nationally according to PFF.
Transitioning from the tight, run blocking splits in Moorhead’s offense to the wide splits required in the air raid, there’s assuredly an adjustment period to the spacing along the offensive line. That said, the transition shouldn’t be staunch enough that the Bulldogs dropped from a PFF pass blocking grade of 62.7 a year ago to 42.3 through five games in 2020.
The quarterbacks have had their issues, namely Costello leading the country in interceptions heading into the Alabama game, but without ample time to get through their progressions, the Bulldogs can’t find the rhythm they need to consistently move the football.
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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