MWN Mailbag

Oct 12, 2013; Starkville, MS, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs fan cheers his team on late in the game against the Bowling Green Falcons at Davis Wade Stadium. The Bulldogs defeated the Falcons 21-20. Mandatory Credit: Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports

It’s Thursday, so let’s open up the mailbag and see what is on the minds of out readers.

Can we? We certainly can, but the better question is will we? As of right now, I’d have to say no. Jamoral Graham’s redshirt was burned specifically for the purpose of returning punts. If he continues to struggle holding on to the ball, then he is going to eventually make a mistake that is going to cost us a game. My guess is that Mullen gives him the Arkansas game and UT Martin game to get his issues worked out. If he doesn’t, he might go with someone else back there, but I don’t know who. Jameon Lewis is not going back there. He is battling a leg injury and the last thing they need to do is put him in a situation where he might get hurt further.

Sure, as a matter of fact, I’d say just about every single one of them will be candidates for coordinator jobs or head coaching jobs. Any time a team goes from unranked to number 1 in the nation in 5 weeks, your assistant coaches are going to be attractive candidates to other head coaches. If your looking for the most likely guys, I’d start with John Hevesy. Hevesy has had an up and down relationship with Mississippi State fans, but he is doing yeoman’s work this year with the offensive line. The Bulldogs are the second best rushing team in the SEC, and the top offensive team in the SEC. That all begins with the offensive line. Most coaches wouldn’t dare run the offensive line we have out there on the field be cause they were such low level prospects, but our guys have been tremendous. A lot of that credit has to go to Hevesy.

It has to be a slight concern, but I’m not too worried about it overall. The breakdowns that we saw against Kentucky often came against the “1Bs”. Mullen didn’t go completely back to his method of swapping out the entire defense all at one time in the Kentucky game, but he came pretty close. The first big touchdown catch shouldn’t have happened if the cornerback had tackled the receiver. It should have been as simple as pushing the guy out of bounds, but the corner completely screwed it up. Who was out there? Tolando Cleveland, a 1B. Another 1B that had a difficult time was Zach Jackson. He seemed to be on the receiving end of a lot of these plays that went for scores against Kentucky.

This brings me to my next point about the “1Bs”. The main thing they need to do is simply not be out there on the field all at the same time. I know Mullen and Collins believe these guys could be starters if they were on another team, but let’s face it, whenever they have, they have given up a large chunk of the yardage. Mullen knew it didn’t really matter who he put out there against Southern Miss, UAB, and South Alabama, we were going to win. So he threw them all out there at the same time. He knew that wasn’t the case against LSU, Texas A&M, and Auburn, so he mixed them in with the starters. In those three games, a lot of the yardage came in garbage time. Against Kentucky, he played a lot of them at the same time. They are good players, but they don’t have the experience or the skill level to all be out on the field at the same time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do the same thing against Arkansas, UT Martin, and Vanderbilt. Those are games the Bulldogs should win, and he wants to get them experience in meaningful game minutes, even if it means the  game ends up being closer than we would like. I don’t expect him to do it against Alabama and Ole Miss.

I took this one because I wanted to talk about the playoff rankings. Ole Miss at number 4 doesn’t surprise me at all. The committee has said all along that they weren’t going to use the polls or rank teams like the polls do. The AP and Coaches Poll have always in years past shown that it was far better to lose early than to lose late. And that was always dumb. When you lose shouldn’t matter one bit. The committee is showing that they are getting away from that mentality. So to see Ole Miss at 4, though we may despise the Rebels, is a good thing in general because the Rebels are being rewarded for their overall body of work. It’s a trend I like.

Notre Dame is probably the most surprising though, because their only loss came on the road at the last second, and they had a chance to win if it hadn’t been for a pass interference call against the team ranked 2nd in this poll. I thought they would be much higher.

My general impression was the committee got it right. They have set the tone early on that the teams that accomplish the most will be the ones playing. They won’t try to distribute it around to four different conferences if there is a conference that hasn’t put a deserving team into consideration. You can argue plenty about what teams have accomplished the most, but that certainly needs to be the standard.