STARKVILLE — If Mississippi State’s defense is going to be beaten, defensive coordinator Zach Arnett wants to make sure the Bulldogs go down swinging.
“You never want to lose a game because you’ve got assignment errors or you don’t have the best players out on the field,” Arnett said Wednesday.
That’s always on the third-year MSU coordinator’s mind, especially as the Bulldogs take stock of their roster with a little over a week until the Sept. 3 season opener against Memphis.
Nearly three weeks into preseason camp, Mississippi State is still seeing open competitions at several defensive positions — including at least three spots in the secondary.
Cornerback Emmanuel Forbes is perhaps the Bulldogs’ only entrenched Week 1 starter, and a closed scrimmage Saturday — the last of camp — might help determine starting roles elsewhere.
“I imagine we’ll see quite a few different lineups in there this weekend in the last scrimmage because I’m not convinced we’ve found the three best safeties to have out there, the three most reliable ones,” Arnett said.
Arnett’s unique 3-3-5 scheme adds a safety to the mix but only gives the Bulldogs another secondary spot to host a competition. Senior Collin Duncan is likely to retain his starting job, but the other two safety jobs are still up for grabs.
Fifth-year senior Jalen Green and sophomore Corey Ellington alternated receiving first-team reps last week, and Arnett implied the position battle between the two is undecided.
Green, a former five-star prospect who transferred in from Texas last year, has met his match in Ellington, a Holmes County Central product started in the Bulldogs’ 2021 Liberty Bowl loss.
“That’s what you’re trying to get during camp,” Arnett said. “You’re trying to create as much competition as possible.”
At the third safety position, West Virginia transfer Jackie Matthews has been playing with the first team in practice over redshirt senior Shawn Preston Jr. since the end of spring camp.
Arnett said Matthews had “earned the right” to get first-team snaps and praised the converted cornerback’s man coverage ability, but he noted Matthews is still learning the ropes.
“You see some hesitation in some of his play at times because he’s probably a little unsure of his assignment, what we’re playing versus certain formations,” Arnett said. “Hesitation will lead to big plays and get you beat on Saturdays, so we’ve got to get that eliminated if he’s going to stay with the 1s.”
At cornerback, Alabama transfer Marcus Banks is trying to beat out junior Decamerion Richardson. Richardson stepped in for last year’s top corner, Martin Emerson, after Emerson’s ejection for targeting last Oct. 30 against Kentucky.
Arnett acknowledged Richardson occasionally makes mistakes, including technique errors, but he praised the Louisiana native’s work ethic.
“The thing you love about Decam is his approach every day,” Arnett said. “ … You like coaching those guys.”
Mississippi State still has plenty of time to settle those position battles before its 2022 opener at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 3 at Davis Wade Stadium.
But as Arnett noted Wednesday in evaluating Saturday’s second preseason scrimmage, that time is beginning to run out.
“You’re never quite satisfied with how it looked,” he said. “You’ve glad you’ve got at that time two weeks left before you play your first game, but those days are quickly dwindling, so we’ve got a lot of stuff to get cleaned up.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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