Mississippi State at Alabama: Bulldogs are just what Bama needs

And no, I don’t mean a cupcake. That comes next week when the Citadel Bulldogs visit Bryant-Denny for an 11:00am SEC Network ‘showdown.’

Mississippi State has some of the things LSU didn’t, like a decent defensive line and a mobile QB in Nick Fitzgerald. LSU will still be the best team Alabama faces in the regular season but State has matchups that could cause some problems even with a full-health Tua Tagovailoa. And Nick Fitzgerald’s toughness and ability to run right by our 300 lb. block of soap can convert 3rd and short in the second half. 

Alabama’s defense just keeps getting better every week, and the cool thing is that the whole unit has improved its play. There is a tremendous difference between the defense that let Louisville receivers run around in September. Arkansas and Mizzou would struggle to score even one touchdown against this unit. On pure passing downs, Fitzgerald will need every bit of his ball totin’ skills because he could be running for his life.

We can look for MSU to borrow from LSU’s game plan. They want to take the ball out of Tua’s hands and make Alabama beat them on the ground. They have a front seven capable of bringing pressure but the question is whether they’re capable and deep enough to do that for four quarters. It’s… unlikely.

Alabama’s offense revolves around Tua now. With Jalen Hurts out for at least another week, it’s either Tua or Mac Jones. Jones is a very good QB, but the playcalling changes with him. He doesn’t have the athletic or defense-reading chops that Tua does, so the playbook has to be trimmed down for him and we get more Sabanball. Let’s hope Tua stays upright, y’all.

Alabama wins both trench matchups, with MSU’s DL having a little better time against Bama’s OL than LSU did. I think we’ll see Bama put up less than 40 points again unless our offensive braintrust finds and ruthlessly exploits a Bulldog weakness.

Let’s say…

Alabama 38, Mississippi State 10

Handbags at five paces: La Tech’s Dykes, MSU’s Mullen duke it out

On Monday, Louisiana Tech football coach Sonny Dykes couldn’t contain his enthusiasm for the way his team played last year, and gushed about how his team stacked up against two Southeastern Conference squads during the course of the season.

"We have better players than people think," the coach said. "Last year we played Mississippi State, and I swear to you there was no difference in our players and theirs. I was shocked. There was no difference. They might've had a little more depth, but across the board our players were about as good as theirs. We played Ole Miss, and we kinda played 'em at a time that wasn't really good for them, and I think we beat 'em by about 24 points and had better players than they did. I was shocked. I would like to say we coached 'em better or we were real smart and pat ourselves on the back, but we had better players than they did."

Dykes’ team lost to Mississippi State 26-20 in overtime in a game that the Bulldogs were widely expected to romp. The close outcome gave rise to lots of speculation regarding whether coach Dan Mullen was making sufficient progress. Ole Miss was already a raging dumpster fire and lost to Dykes’ Bulldogs in a 27-7 laugher.

Mullen returned fire today in a telephone interview with the Clarion-Ledger:

“I guess if the players are equal we must have better coaches here at Mississippi State since we won,” Mullen said in jest. “But they are a very good football team. Sonny does a great job with their program.”

Unfortunately, Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech don’t meet again until 2015 and in this time of increasing coaching mobility, it’s a coin flip as to whether either or both are still at their posts when that date rolls around.

Helmet tap to Pete Roussell.

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This is how you win SEC road games: LSU 19, MSU 6

The first three quarters of last night’s LSU visit to Mississippi State were a typical, prime time SEC slobber-knocker. Both defenses were dominating and keeping the opposing team out of the end zone. It was shaping up to be a classic until the opening drive of the 4th quarter, when LSU got the ball on their own 11 yard line and methodically marched 89 yards down the field for a dagger-in-the-heart touchdown.

If you’re going to win in the SEC West, this is how you do it. You pay stifling defense and get the other team’s offense off the field. You physically dominate the line of scrimmage and give your speed merchants room to operate. And in the fourth quarter with the game still competitive, facing a hostile crowd and a testy defense, you execute your game plan and win it with a key touchdown drive.

Make no mistake about it—before that drive, the outcome of last night’s game was in doubt. Both teams had made plays but neither had punched it in for six. Both teams had made important defensive stops but neither had truly dominated.

Until the 4th quarter, when the LSU offense got untracked and the defense finally got a death grip around the Mississippi State offense. Bulldog coach Dan Mullen benched starting QB Chris Relf following LSU’s pivotal scoring drive, inserting sophomore Tyler Russell in the hopes that the young pocket passer could generate some spark and get State back into contention.

It didn’t happen—Russell went 4-8 in two possessions. On the first possession, Russell was sacked by the LSU defense and promptly threw an INT on the very next play. On the next possession (the last series of the night), he was running for his life.

The final score of 19-6 doesn’t indicate how competitive this game was through three quarters, but it does describe how a championship caliber team performs on the road against a capable opponent. Last night’s game was classic SEC football and by all indications, there’s a lot more of it in store for us.

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Opening night: Mississippi State looks polished, dangerous

The slate of contests from last night’s debut of the 2011 college football season offered a few hints of what might be ahead. South Alabama beat a plucky West Alabama 20-10, improving its overall record to 18-0 and showing Joey Jones’ bon fides as a game day coach.  Kentucky fans always treat football season like a warmup to basketball, and last night’s sleeper of a 14-3 win shows that there ain’t much reason for an attitude adjustment.

But what impressed me and should frighten SEC West opponents was Mississippi State’s dismantling of Memphis. Mullen’s Bulldogs don’t seem to have lost a step after demolishing Michigan in the Gator Bowl. On a steamy night in Memphis, they rolled up 645 yards of total offense. Vick Ballard ran for 166 of those. Chris Relf threw for 202 of them. Records fell faster than Memphis’ hope for a season opening upset on their own turf. In the last two games, Mississippi State has scored 111 points.

The Bulldogs look like a polished and confident football team in midseason form, even taking into account the overmatched competition they faced last night. Memphis is a young team and looked lost, but give some credit to State for making them look that way.

State gets an extra two days of rest and preparation before traveling to Auburn, a team it lost to in a nail-biter last season, 17-14. It was in that game that the 2010 Auburn team found its Newtonian identity and relied on its experienced, talented defense to hold off the Bulldogs. It’s safe to say that Mississippi State is a better team than the 2010 flavor, and Auburn is still restocking its shelves. Play this game in Starkville and State would likely be the favorite. At Jordan-Hare, it’s a coin flip and should be a fun game to watch.

State then gets LSU at home on another Thursday night matchup, takes a tune-up/breather against Louisiana Tech and travels to Columbia for a game against 2010 SEC East champ South Carolina. If Mississippi State finds a way to win two of the three upcoming SEC games and beats Kentucky in October, the Alabama and Arkansas games in November might go a long way to deciding who makes the trip to Atlanta on the first Saturday in December.

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CamGate, Chapter II: FBI to investigate Cameron Newton story UPDATE: Video

 

Updated story here.

 

Sorry for the broken link. When I imported the ESPN video in the online editor, it grunged the post beyond repair.