Mississippi State football: Kylin Hill thrived against No. 8 Auburn

Kylin Hill bounced back this past weekend and had a huge performance as the Mississippi State football team took down the No. 8 Auburn Tigers.

As the Mississippi State football team got right back on track against the 8th ranked Auburn Tigers, so did the Bulldogs’ starting running back. Sophomore Kylin Hill started the season off with a bang, but then didn’t get anywhere near the number of carries that he needed to really get going.

To open the season against Stephen F. Austin, the Mississippi State football team turned to Hill to run the ball 9 times for 50 yards and a touchdown. He also had a catch for 53 yards and a touchdown. That’s a totally fine number of touches for a starting running back in a game against an FCS opponent to start the year. Don’t risk your best running back getting hurt in a meaningless game that you already control. Totally reasonable and fine.

During the second game of the season, Hill ran the ball 17 times for 211 yards and two touchdowns. He also had another catch, this one for 16 yards and a touchdown. Hill was incredibly dominant against Kansas State and appeared fully capable of carrying Mississippi State to victory each and every week.

Game three was a bit different. Hill got dinged up a bit and only had 6 carries for 32 yards. He caught a couple of passes for -3 yards. It wasn’t a good performance. However, MSU still won big as the Bulldogs destroyed Louisiana-Lafayette.

The Bulldogs were 3-0 and Hill had run for 293 yards and three touchdowns on 32 carries. That’s a total of 9.2 yards per carry through the first three weeks of the season. To go with that, Hill had 4 receptions for 66 yards and two touchdowns.

But against Kentucky and Florida, Hill didn’t get anywhere near enough touches. MSU’s offense was sputtering, Nick Fitzgerald appeared rattled, and the Bulldogs were routinely blown up on the offensive line.

Given the struggles up front, it made some sense that Moorhead wanted to try and spread things out, but to only give Hill the ball a total of 13 times on the ground in two horrible losses was painful to watch.

Against Auburn, though, he got a season high 23 carries. That led to 126 rushing yards for Hill. To say that this fixed things a bit is an understatement. The Mississippi State football team found its identity again and appeared unstoppable against a top ten opponent.

It helped that the offensive line paved his way and Fitzgerald got right as he ran the ball for 195 yards, but it was great to see Hill used routinely against the Tigers.

Prior to the game between Mississippi State and Auburn, the Tigers were holding their opponents to 92.8 rushing yards per game. It’s safe to say that Fitzgerald and Hill demolished that number.

The Mississippi State football team has a dangerous weapon on offense in Hill. They should continue to use him regularly alongside Fitzgerald and Aeris Williams.

All stats via sports-reference.com