STARKVILLE – It only took three weeks for head coach Jeff Lebby and the Mississippi State Bulldogs to surpass the win total of a forgettable 2024 season.
MSU moved to 3-0 with a dominant 63-0 win over Alcorn State at home on Saturday, the first shutout for the Bulldogs since 2017. There have been five different head coaches in the years between those games, a sign of the inconsistency in both performance and personnel for the program, but a routine win to stay undefeated proved a potential sign of stability at last.
“I feel really good,” defensive lineman Kedrick Bingley-Jones said of the shutout. “Coach Lebby said that was our first shutdown since 2017, so it felt really good being able to see the young guys go in and execute because, like we talked about all week, it didn’t matter who’s in the game. The expectation was to execute. So it felt really good to see those guys… go in there and still be able to uphold the standard on the D line. It feels really good.”
Bingley-Jones and the starting unit only took the field for the first half of play. Plenty of players got an opportunity to take the field against the Braves, including both backup quarterbacks and even a walk-on quarterback for the final plays.
Defensively, the shutout never really seemed in danger. There was a clear intensity from the unit throughout the game, and the first stringers served as the biggest cheerleaders for the backups as the unit kept the zero on the board through to the final whistle.
“The message at halftime was… regardless of who’s in the game, the expectation is for guys to be able to go and execute at a really high level,” Lebby said post-game. “And so there were fourth-string guys in there. There were guys that were 100% red-shirted, in to play, the last 15 plays of the game for us defensively, and our guys played fast, they played with edge, they had fun playing, and I loved having the ability to reward those guys as we’re in the middle of it right now.”
The flexibility with personnel was evident on offense as well. Three different quarterbacks led touchdown drives, and eight different Bullogs carried the ball into the end zone. The staff was able to dive deep into the playbook and the depth chart on the night, and Lebby came away pleased with the results.
The head coach was already thinking ahead to the next game in the post-game press conference, noting the need to focus on the next opponent and finalize preparations for the daunting Southeastern Conference schedule that will follow close behind.
“We’re going to need great depth,” he said. “I think we all understand what’s coming down the pipe here. Obviously, we have Northern Illinois coming in next week, and then starting conference play. So we do, we’ve got a huge stretch ahead of us and next Saturday will be a very physical game, in which we’re going to need everybody.”
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