STARKVILLE — Manny Diaz doesn’t care what the Missouri offense has done in the last three games.
The first-year Mississippi State defensive coordinator and his staff have showed the Bulldog defense 14 plays from the last three games where Missouri should have scored the ball, plays where they outplayed and out-executed the opposing defense, but for one reason or another the play wasn’t finished and a touchdown wasn’t scored. The Tigers have gone the last three games without scoring a touchdown.
The No. 24 Bulldogs (6-2, 2-2 Southeastern Conference) have been preparing hard and are not taking the Tigers (4-4, 1-4) lightly as the teams face off 8 p.m. Thursday (ESPN) in Columbia, Missouri.
The last touchdown for the Tigers came in early October. It has been a national-leading 40 drives since that score.
“There’s been a lot of bizarre plays like that, that the more they happen the more it affects a team’s confidence,” Diaz said. “We showed them what we call 14 touchdowns that they had scored. We know for us to have a chance of success, we can’t let those things happen. The odds are, their level of execution’s going to match and those things will start to become big plays for them down the road.”
In losses to Florida, Georgia, and Vanderbilt, Missouri has scored a total of 12 points. Andrew Baggett has made four field goals during the three-game stretch. The Tigers have managed 609 yards of total offense in the three losses.
MSU coaches have not let the defense rest this past two weeks in preparing for Missouri, and they have tried to engrain into them the type of offense Missouri is very capable of being.
The players have bought in.
“They can make plays whenever they want to,” MSU redshirt freshman safety Brandon Bryant said. “We just have to be the trendsetter for everything. We have to set everything straight on the back end. We’ve got to make sure we play good before anybody else because we control the outcome of the game.”
The Tigers are averaging 14.9 points (127th in the country) and 277.6 yards (126th in the country) per game this season. In four conference games, Missouri is only averaging 9.8 points and 249.2 yards per game.
MSU’s defense has struggled out of the gate this season giving up 62 points in the first quarter. In the final three quarters, opponents are scoring just 80 points against the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs are only allowing on average 19 points and 416.2 yards in SEC games this season.
“They have just missed some throws,” MSU coach Dan Mullen said of Missouri’s offense. “It’s not like they aren’t playing well. They are inches away from putting up a lot of big numbers and a lot of big plays.”
The last touchdown for the Tigers came against South Carolina Oct. 3 in the third quarter. Freshman quarterback Drew Lock got his first-career start against the Gamecocks, as junior Maty Mauk was suspended indefinitely. Mauk was reinstated last week, but Missouri announced Sunday he is suspended for the rest of the season.
The Bulldogs had last week off with a bye week, but they started preparations for Missouri for the Thursday night game. The starting quarterback didn’t affect those preparations.
“I don’t know that it has a dramatic impact on our preparation,” Diaz said. “In the four games prior, they were running basically the same plays. We understand on the board what we’re going to get.”
Locke has passed for 763 yards and three touchdowns, but has thrown three interceptions this season.
The Tigers only have two wide receivers with more than 200 receiving yards. Sophomore Nate Brown has caught 20 passes for 251 yards and four touchdowns. Sophomore J’Mon Moore has 20 catches for 235 yards and two touchdowns.
“They’ve got some good receivers, a good running back or two, and they’re really high-powered,” Bryant said. “They run a lot of vertical concept routes. We’ve just got to play good on the back end and have good eyes.”
the Tigers have rushed for only 804 yards this season. Sophomore Ish Witter leads the team with 342 yards and one touchdown. Senior Russell Hansbrough has rushed for 202 yards, but hasn’t scored a touchdown. He has missed one game this season due to injury.
Last year Hansbrough rushed for 1,084 yards and 10 touchdowns.
“He’s a shifty runner,” Diaz said. “He’s got speed and he can make plays when he gets into the open field. That’s been our thing, keeping him bottled up and keeping him inside. He is one of the keys to shutting them down.”
The Bulldogs are allowing 161.8 rushing yards per game this season and 206 in SEC games. Diaz’s main focus has been to stop the run, and that doesn’t change this week.
“In college football in this day and age, the run game is still every quarterback’s best friend,” Diaz said. “You’re still trying to make a team one dimensional and they’re aware of that and they’ve got to try and do things to try and get the running game going and we have to try and do things to get it stopped.”
n, senior quarterback Dak Prescott was named a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award, honoring the most outstanding player in college football, by the Maxwell Football Club, and the Davey O’Brien Award, presented annually to the best college quarterback, Monday.
The Haughton, Louisiana, native was a finalist for both awards last season.
He has thrown for 2,048 yards and 14 touchdowns and rushed for 371 yards and seven other touchdowns this season.
n, MSU’s Nov. 14 game against Alabama will either be at 2:30 p.m. or 6:15 p.m. The official time will be announced after this week’s games.
If it’s a 2:30 p.m. game, it can be seen on CBS, otherwise it will be televised by either ESPN or ESPN2.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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