Mississippi State football: 5 concerns from Joe Moorhead’s first season

STARKVILLE, MS - OCTOBER 27: Head coach Joe Moorhead of the Mississippi State Bulldogs and head coach Jimbo Fisher of the Texas A&M Aggies greet after a game at Davis Wade Stadium on October 27, 2018 in Starkville, Mississippi. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
STARKVILLE, MS - OCTOBER 27: Head coach Joe Moorhead of the Mississippi State Bulldogs and head coach Jimbo Fisher of the Texas A&M Aggies greet after a game at Davis Wade Stadium on October 27, 2018 in Starkville, Mississippi. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
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Mississippi State football
BATON ROUGE, LA – OCTOBER 20: Head coach Joe Moorhead of the Mississippi State Bulldogs reacts during the first half against the LSU Tigers at Tiger Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

Joe Moorhead’s first season as the head coach of the Mississippi State football team has come to a close. What can we take away from the year? What concerns are present from this past season?

After one season with Joe Moorhead leading the Mississippi State football team, there are some concerns that exist given how the Bulldogs performed. It’s not as if winning eight games was a bad thing. That’s what many on the outside of the program expected coming into this season with Moorhead being a first time head coach in the SEC.

However, Moorhead himself talked about championships. And so, many Mississippi State football fans had raised their expectations for this past season and for what Moorhead was going to do with this program.

When considering that context, it’s easy to understand why there are concerns from this past season.

Looking at this past year through the lens of raised expectations and all of the returning talent that was present, the Bulldogs underachieved a bit. MSU certainly could have won a couple of more games and finished the year on a higher note than it did.

But, well, 8-5 is what happened for Mississippi State. And it was often frustrating, and disappointing to watch.

Given the disappointment and how the Bulldogs underachieved, there’s certainly room to be concerned about what the future may hold for this program. If Moorhead couldn’t get to 10 wins with the best defense in the country backing up his offense, than what should MSU fans really expect moving forward? Will the program regress?

Here’s five concerns from the first season of the Joe Moorhead era of Mississippi State football.

All stats via sports-reference.com