Mississippi State football: 5 Areas where Bulldogs should improve most in 2020

No. 1: Long Pass Plays

At last, we come to the entire reason for the Air Raid offense to exist, and that’s constantly getting chunks of yardage out of the passing game.

Mike Leach’s Cougars were first in the nation with pass plays of over 10 yards in 2019 with 227 of them, and the breakdown is quite impressive. Of those 227 plays:

73 went for over 20 yards
29 went for over 30 yards
11 went for over 40 yards
4 went for over 50 yards
and one went for over 60 yards.

The Bulldogs had less than half that many big plays, with just 102 on the season. If they can even up that by 50 plays this year it will make a huge difference in keeping opposing offenses off the field and breaking their spirits when giving up big plays.

Who the quarterback(s) and receivers are that will put those plays together is yet to be seen, but one way or the other, Mike Leach is going to air the ball out for some big gainers. Count on it.

All statistics via cfbstats.com