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

By Ethan Lee

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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BATON ROUGE, LA – OCTOBER 20: Nick Fitzgerald #7 of the Mississippi State Bulldogs runs with the ball as Jacob Phillips #6 of the LSU Tigers defends during the first half at Tiger Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images) /

The Bulldogs weren’t really competitive in big games

This is also something that carried over from Dan Mullen’s final season as the head coach of the Mississippi State football team. In both 2017 and 2018, the Bulldogs struggled to even compete in big games against tougher opponents.

In 2017, those struggles came against Georgia and Auburn. The Mississippi State Bulldogs were annihilated in both of those games, losing by a combined 67 points. Yes, MSU went toe-to-toe with the Alabama Crimson Tide later in the year, but that was when Alabama was already incredibly thin at linebacker and that game was in Starkville.

And as a whole, all four of MSU’s losses in 2017 were by a combined 77 points.

In 2018, Mississippi State couldn’t contend with Kentucky, Florida, LSU, and Alabama. MSU lost those four games by a combined 68 points. Throw in the Outback Bowl loss to Iowa and the Bulldogs lost 5 games during this past season by a combined

MSU barely showed any sort of improvement at all in that regard under Joe Moorhead.

After talking about winning championships, Moorhead’s Bulldogs didn’t get any closer than Mullen’s. There’s a chance that this could change as time goes on and Moorhead gets his players and system established within this program. But, well, it’ll have to change soon for this to not be a concern moving forward.

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