Defensive Line for Mississippi State Football will be Dynamic
With the Mississippi State football team signing Jeffrey Simmons, Kobe Jones, and Marquiss Spencer, the Bulldogs will have a formidable defensive line in the future.
Dan Mullen has done a lot of things right since he arrived at Mississippi State back in 2009. One of the things he learned in 2012 is if you want to compete in the SEC, you are going to have to have a defensive line that is capable of imposing its will on the opponent.
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The Mississippi State football team has been building a solid defensive line ever since the 2012 season. The Bulldogs got off to a fast start in 2012 by winning their first seven games of the season, but once they reached the teeth of the schedule, they discovered they didn’t have the defensive line to compete with the better teams in the league.
Despite a rotating door of defensive coordinators, the Bulldogs have picked up the slack on their defensive line struggles. As good as the Mississippi State football pass rush has been over the past three seasons, the signing of Simmons, Jones, and Spencer could give the Bulldogs a dominant pass rush in two to three seasons.
The 2016 signing class didn’t make a lot of headlines outside the surprising announcement of Jeffrey Simmons. But the one thing it did do was infuse an already solid defensive line with some of the best talent in the state of Mississippi.
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Simmons and Spencer are both defensive ends. Simmons got all of the publicity because he was the highest ranked player in the state. But Spencer is no slouch. The two should provide an electric pass rush from the end positions in two to three seasons.
Kobe Jones is a line clogging defensive tackle who will be excellent at slowing down the opposing team’s running game. He’ll also be able to push the pocket back to bring pass rush up the middle while Spencer and Simmons bring the heat from the outside. Jones will pair up with Cory Thomas and Fletcher Adams, two defensive tackles from the 2015 signing class, to make it awfully hard for other teams to run the ball.
More bulldogs: Signing Jeffrey Simmons was Dan Mullen's Best Work as a Recruiter
No one is going to say the Mississippi State football team is winning the SEC West with the recruiting class they pulled in last Wednesday. But if in 2017, 2018, or 2019 the Bulldogs are making life miserable for opposing quarterbacks and running backs, I would suspect the 2016 signing class will be a big reason why.