Mississippi State football’s passing offense appears notably different in 2018

Joe Moorhead is bringing a rather potent passing attack to the Mississippi State football program

The Mississippi State football team debuted a brand new, potent offense last night. The Bulldogs scorched Stephen F. Austin throughout the evening, finding the end zone a total of nine times as the Mississippi State offense scored seemingly at will.

Last night, we saw an offense that was built to explode and score at any given moment. From multiple deep passes to wide open receivers and quarterbacks dashing down field on scrambles, Mississippi State now has an offense that can score in several different ways and won’t be totally reliant on a slow and steady running game.

Over the past few seasons, Mississippi State seemed to have an offense that was built to run the ball through the majority of the game and pass when it needed to.

Last season, the Bulldogs averaged 166.9 passing yards per game with a 54.1 completion percentage and a total of 17 passing touchdowns. In 2016, things were a bit better but not by any significant amount. MSU averaged 209.7 yards through the air per game and had 24 total passing touchdowns.

Last night, we saw a couple of encouraging trends.

First, the Mississippi State football team utilized its running backs in the passing game.

Mississippi State’s starting quarterback for the evening Keytaon Thompson spread the ball around quite a bit and in the process, the Bulldogs got the ball to Kylin Hill and Aeris Williams out of the backfield. Hill took the ball 53 yards to the end zone after breaking free, Williams caught a clutch touchdown as Thompson scrambled, and even Nick Gibson caught a pass and took it nine yards up the field.

Secondly, Mississippi State had multiple deep passes down the field.

Keytaon Thompson only completed 13 passes against the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks. However, Thompson threw for a very impressive 364 passing yards and had five touchdowns through the air.

Osirus Mitchell only caught a couple of passes but he had 114 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Stephen Guidry caught a pass for 39 yards and Justin Johnson caught a pass for 34 yards. That’s not counting how Aeris Williams, Devonta Jason, and Deddrick Thomas all also had receptions of over 20 yards each.

Mississippi State has the ability to stretch the field now. The only thing the Bulldogs need to work on with that is completing a higher percentage of passes throughout the game. As was mentioned earlier, Thompson only completed 13 passes. He attempted 31 passes. 

But, that’s something that can develop over time. As Thompson gets used to Mississippi State’s new passing attack, he’ll almost certainly improve and become more accurate. He just needs a bit more time, and that’s okay.