TEMPE, Ariz. — Mississippi State received a harsh dose of reality Saturday night, with Arizona State dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball for most of the night to send the Bulldogs to a 30-23 loss.
Cam Skattebo and the Sun Devils ran wild, slicing through would-be tacklers left and right, and MSU simply had no answers. Arizona State averaged 7.4 yards per rush in the first half, with Skattebo crossing the 100-yard mark with four minutes to go in the second quarter. Quarterback Sam Leavitt proved difficult to bring down as well, with a pair of rushing touchdowns before halftime as the Sun Devils racked up 208 rushing yards in the first 30 minutes.
The Bulldogs’ offense was not much better, going three and out on its first two drives. MSU’s offensive line could not generate much push, with Johnnie Daniels and Davon Booth going nowhere and Keyvone Lee not going very far either outside of the very first play of the game. Blake Shapen started to find some rhythm on the Bulldogs’ third possession, but MSU (1-1) stalled inside the 10-yard line and had to settle for a field goal.
With Arizona State (2-0) leading 13-3 in the second quarter, MSU appeared to have connected on an explosive play when Shapen hit freshman Mario Craver deep down the sideline on a third-and-9. But Craver pushed off the defensive back and was called for offensive pass interference, and on third-and-22, Shapen lost control of the ball as he was about to get sacked, and C.J. Fite recovered and took it in for a Sun Devils touchdown.
Arizona State scored on its first five offensive possessions, all of them covering at least nine plays and 45 yards. The Bulldogs’ defense did not get a stop until very late in the third quarter, just after Lee found the end zone on fourth down for a six-yard touchdown.
MSU followed that stop with another scoring drive, taking advantage of a defensive holding penalty on fourth down and paying it off on a 15-yard pass from Shapen to a wide-open Booth. The Bulldogs would make it a one-score game two possessions later on an 80-yard touchdown pass from Shapen to Coleman, but that was as close as they would get.
Takeaways
1. The Bulldogs’ failure to significantly bolster the defensive line is coming back to bite them. Head coach Jeff Lebby and company had success recruiting offensive players in the transfer portal in the offseason, but much less so on defense, particularly up front. MSU added Kedrick Bingley-Jones from North Carolina and Sulaiman Kpaka from Purdue, neither of whom had played a ton of football before this year.
Facing just a three-man front most of the time, the Sun Devils opened up big holes for Skattebo, Leavitt and their other backs and dictated the pace of the game.
2. The offense will need to start figuring things out earlier going forward. Shapen did not exactly look out of sorts early, but he spent a lot of time running for his life as Arizona State’s blitzes broke through. That said, he rallied nicely and played well for much of the second half, standing in the pocket and delivering well-thrown balls.
His 80-yard completion to Coleman, in which the Louisville transfer made a man miss and was off to the races, cut the deficit to a single touchdown with five and a half minutes left. But the Bulldogs would never get the ball back as the defense once again could not stop Skattebo and the ground attack.
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