STARKVILLE — With star Arkansas running back Ja’Quinden Jackson out Saturday due to an ankle injury, Mississippi State’s defense had a blueprint for slowing down the Razorbacks: make quarterback Taylen Green beat them.
Green certainly did beat the Bulldogs, and so did everyone else on his side of the ball. Arkansas torched MSU for 673 total yards and averaged upwards of 10 yards per play, routing MSU 58-25 and sending the Bulldogs to their seventh loss in a row.
“I thought we had made real progress, we had gotten better, had played really good normal-down defense (in recent weeks),” MSU head coach Jeff Lebby said. “Today, it was just the opposite. We did some things on third down, but we couldn’t get them into enough third downs. We have to play better against the run. That’s first and foremost.”
Freshman Braylen Russell stepped into the starting lineup in place of Jackson and lit up the Bulldogs’ depleted defense for 175 yards on 16 carries. MSU was already down Kalvin Dinkins and Kedrick Bingley-Jones from its defensive line, was also missing De’Monte Russell and Trevion Williams on Saturday.
That left Deonte Anderson, Sulaiman Kpaka and freshman Kai McClendon to fill out the starting lineup, and they were simply overmatched against the Razorbacks’ offensive front. Those mismatches, combined with a dual-threat quarterback like Green, led to chunk play after chunk play for Arkansas — 11 total plays that gained 20 or more yards.
“We were getting back there to him, we just have to get him on the ground,” safety Isaac Smith said. “He can throw the ball really well and he can run. Guys like that, you can’t let them get going or they’ll be going all day.”
In addition to the Razorbacks’ 359 rushing yards, Green completed 23 of his 29 passes for 314 yards and five touchdowns. Four of those touchdown passes went to tight ends Luke Hasz and Andreas Paaske, who kept on leaking out behind the MSU secondary. With Arkansas leading by just three late in the first quarter, the entire Bulldogs defense sold out to stop the run on fourth-and-1, and Green hit a wide-open Hasz for a 14-yard score.
Turnovers were a big thorn in MSU’s side Saturday for the first time all season — the Bulldogs committed five, the first two coming when freshman quarterback Michael Van Buren was stripped by blitzers. Johnnie Daniels fumbled in the fourth quarter as he tried to stretch the ball across the goal line, and Van Buren threw interceptions on MSU’s last two drives of the game.
“Mike has to continue to do a really good job of understanding every situation, and the big people around him every snap have the ability to get to him and get the ball out,” Lebby said. “We have to catch the football there in the fourth quarter where it’s tipped in the air, and we can’t reach the ball as we’re getting down there close to the (end zone).”
The Bulldogs (1-7, 0-5 Southeastern Conference) tied the game early in the first quarter on a screen pass from Van Buren to Davon Booth that the running back took 54 yards for a touchdown. But despite moving the ball inside the Razorbacks’ 25-yard line on each of their next four possessions, they came away with just three total points.
Booth was stuffed on a fourth-and-1 at the Arkansas 22 for a turnover on downs, and kicker Kyle Ferrie missed a 42-yard field goal early in the second quarter. Later, on the doorstep of the goal line, MSU was unable to score on first-and-goal from the 2, although tight end Seydou Traore thought he had broken the plane on third down. The Razorbacks (5-3, 3-2) stuffed backup quarterback Chris Parson on fourth down to get the ball back.
“You have no chance to beat a good football team if you’re doing that offensively,” Lebby said. “Not being able to get touchdowns, we had the ability offensively to make this a game to where it’s respectable and not ending up the way it did, and give some energy and hope to our defense. You have a chance to score, you have to score.”
The Bulldogs were at least able to force their only punt of the game and took over in plus territory, but Traore again thought he had scored a touchdown only for the officials to mark him just short. To make matters worse, Traore chucked the ball into the stands, getting himself penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct, and MSU managed just a field goal. Arkansas had plenty of time to put together another touchdown drive and take a 31-10 halftime lead.
That made the second half mostly window dressing, though the Bulldogs did score 15 points in 43 seconds late in the third quarter. Kevin Coleman turned a screen pass into a 31-yard touchdown, and following an interception by linebacker Nic Mitchell, Van Buren sold the defense on a fake handoff and took it in himself for a 4-yard score.
The quick touchdowns were ultimately meaningless, though, because the Bulldogs’ defense kept getting gashed. The Razorbacks’ 58 points were the most MSU has allowed since Arkansas put up the same number at Davis Wade Stadium in 2016. After Daniels’ fumble on the goal line, the Razorbacks drove 99 yards in just five plays to cross the 50-point barrier.
The Bulldogs will get a much-needed break from the grind of SEC play next week with a home game against Massachusetts.
“There’s frustration in how we played today defensively. There’s great disappointment in how we played today,” Lebby said. “We had made great improvement, we had played better and better, and today we didn’t. We’ll go back, we’ll look at it and we’re going to fight our butts off to fix it.”
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