STARKVILLE — Tom Luginbill’s up-close-and-personal interactions with this year’s Mississippi State football team have coincided with the team’s low points. He was on the sidelines for ESPN’s broadcast of the 13-6 loss to Florida and the 19-3 loss to LSU.
In both losses, he saw a common theme.
“The problem that Joe Moorhead has right now — and I said this on the broadcast — is when you’re so one-dimensional and everyone in the stadium including the hot dog vendor knows what’s coming, you become predictable, obviously,” Luginbill told The Dispatch. “When you’re playing against good defensive personnel that doesn’t trust you can throw the football, they’re going to load up the box or they’re going to play close to the line of scrimmage and they’re going to dare you to throw it to beat them. That’s essentially what LSU did.”
The numbers show why opponents might dare MSU (4-3, 1-3 Southeastern Conference) to throw: both last in the SEC and bottom 10 nationally in completion percentage (46.7) and quarterback rating (108.91). As Luginbill prepares to be on the call for MSU once again 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN) against No. 16 Texas A&M (5-2, 3-1 SEC), he shared his thoughts on MSU’s passing attack with The Dispatch.
His commentary on the state of the passing game is far from the minority. Calls for a quarterback change from Nick Fitzgerald to Keytaon Thompson have reached the coaching staff — Moorhead said the staff discussed granting Thompson limited series as both an opportunity for a talented player and a break for Fitzgerald, who is averaging 20 carries per game.
The passing must improve for the offense to improve, but Luginbill is not convinced the quarterback is the only one to blame.
“It’s not all Nick all the time, but I think one of the issues is the wide receivers have an extremely high drop rate as you compare them to the rest of the conference,” Luginbill said. “Let’s say they break the huddle: is there anybody that the defense says, ‘Let’s find where this guy is lined up. Who do we need to roll to to protect ourself against this guy or that guy?’ Not only do they not feel confident that Nick Fitzgerald can be productive through the air, they’re not worried about the personnel creating the mismatch against them, if you’re looking at it from the defensive perspective.
“It doesn’t so much become about talent as much as if they’re getting the ball, or if they’re thrown the ball, do they catch the ball? There’s really been nothing statistically or talent-based to tell a defense, ‘We have to take this guy away.'”
Moorhead has made a similar point to Luginbill’s after each game of increased passing struggles that quarterback is not the lone issue. He believes MSU has yet to have adequate pass protection, wide receiver play and quarterback play all at the same time.
Bill Connelly’s advanced statistics bolster Luginbill’s point on wide receivers. Catch rate is simply the number of targets that the receiver turns into receptions; the number isn’t a perfect representation, since a horribly inaccurate throw can still be targeted at a receiver and thus harm that receiver’s catch rate, but it does serve as a starting point for evaluation.
With the national average around 60 percent, MSU only has three pass catchers above it: wide receiver Deddrick Thomas, running back Nick Gibson and running back Aeris Williams. Stephen Guidry leads the team with 33 targets but has a catch rate of 33.3 percent; Osirus Mitchell is second with 28 targets and a 50 percent catch rate.
Offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Luke Getsy has challenged his receivers to help their quarterback.
“For them, it’s making sure they’re detailed in what they do. They need to make sure they are where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there,” Getsy said. “That’s the most important thing: if something seems off to a guy who’s maybe not spinning it that day as good as he can, that messes it up even more.”
If the receivers handle that, the next step is to help the quarterback — whoever it is — find the rhythm they’ve been missing. Luginbill asked a question of Moorhead at halftime of the LSU game rooted in the same principles, asking him if changing Fitzgerald’s launch point was an option.
“What I’m hoping to see this weekend is they do some of that. They do some naked bootlegs, they do some more things that are off the jet sweep action and they’re moving the pocket so he’s not always in the same spot all the time,” Luginbill said.
Such maneuvers would help MSU passers by giving them only half of the field to read, since the rollout takes them away from half of it. That action could limit interceptions, simplify the decision-making process and — in the case of Fitzgerald — have him start the play doing what he does best: run.
In fairness, all of those qualities could also be exploited by a savvy defense. The options are not slim, but the list of acceptable outcomes is.
“We absolutely have to find a way to generate more explosive plays while protecting the football,” Moorhead said. “We can’t rely on the run game to drive the length of the field; as a playcaller, it makes it very, very tough.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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