Before last week, Mississippi State ranked 105th out of 131 FBS teams in run defense.
All it took was facing Alabama for the Bulldogs to improve.
MSU jumped all the way up to No. 57 in the nation in yards per game and 85th in yards per carry after holding the Crimson Tide to just 29 yards on 27 rushes.
Four of those attempts were sacks, while one was a team loss of 11 yards for Alabama.
Still, excepting those five plays, MSU held Alabama to 53 yards on 22 carries — a 2.4-yard average.
The Bulldogs limited Jahmyr Gibbs to 37 yards on 10 carries and were even better against the Tide’s other two backs. Jase McClellan had six carries for nine yards, and Roydell Williams ran six times for seven yards.
It was an encouraging performance for an MSU team that gave up 241 rushing yards against Arkansas and 239 against Kentucky in successive weeks.
Johnson, Watson both tackling machines
A 13-tackle game against Memphis in the Sept. 3 season opener put weak-side linebacker Jett Johnson on pace for quite a few tackles.
But middle linebacker Nathaniel Watson is catching up.
Watson recorded 17 tackles against Kentucky and added 10 against Alabama, giving him 68 for the season. That is tied for 25th among all FBS players.
Johnson, for his part, has accrued 72 tackles in 2022, tied for 11th nationally.
The pair of Bulldogs are second and third in the Southeastern Conference, behind only Anfernee Orji of Vanderbilt, who is eighth nationally with 83 tackles.
MSU’s next-leading tackler is cornerback Decamerion Richardson at 52.
Johnson is on pace for 117 tackles this year, factoring in a potential bowl game; Watson is on track for 110.5.
Bulldogs punters impressive but inconsistent
Archer Trafford wowed the crowd on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium with a 60-yard punt in the second quarter, booting the ball all the way back to the Alabama 12-yard line from his own 28.
Trafford has shown off a strong leg this season, but he and George Georgopoulos have been inconsistent punting the ball for Mississippi State.
Trafford’s punting average of 45.15 yards would rank 13th in FBS, but he has only punted 13 times this season as the Bulldogs have rotated him and Georgopoulos.
The one-time Air Force transfer’s other punt Saturday, though, was just 16 yards, going out of bounds at the MSU 45-yard line late in the first half.
Against Kentucky, Georgopoulos shanked a punt that went just 4 yards.
All told, the Bulldogs are just about average overall on their punting unit with a 42.10 average, good for 68th best in FBS.
More consistency from Trafford and Georgopoulos could help boost that number when the Bulldogs have to punt the football away.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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