Mississippi State Football Offensive Film Study: Examining Arizona

MSU vs. Arizona: Takeaways

This was a poor night for the Bulldog offense.

The issues along the OL are concerning going forward. Arizona retooled their defensive front with legit size and talent. They weren’t going to be pushovers. But you still expect a SEC OL to have a stronger performance against them. And though we can acknowledge Zona is no longer weak along the DL, are they stronger than the DLs you’re going to face in the SEC? That’s a no.

With LSU on deck, the Bulldog OL has to quickly step things up. They did a nice job on their base run scheme early in the game, but once Arizona made some adjustments defensively, the Wildcats starting winning the battle up front, both in defending the run and rushing the passer. But of course that’s where play-calling certainly didn’t help.

Kevin Barbay never seemed to adjust to Arizona’s adjustments. State stayed run-heavy even once Zona started taking it away. Outside of Tulu Griffin and Woody Marks, you didn’t see State’s best play-makers get the ball, which is something Barbay has preached doing. And Will Rogers never got the opportunity to get into a rhythm as a passer.

Rogers is at his best working quick game and dropback passes. It’s what he’s been doing since high school. But we really haven’t seen much of that to this point in the season. The handful of times we have seen it, those plays have been fairly successful.

Take this pass to Tulu Griffin for example.

There’s nothing special here. State is running a Shock concept (Stick variant) to the trips side, and to the two-receiver side, they have Justin Robinson on an out route with Tulu on a slant (possible option route). Standard quick game procedure. Will can either work the main route concept or, if he likes the matchup opposite, he can take that.

He sees Tulu with an opportunity to work one-on-one, and it’s an easy pitch and catch that turns into a massive gain. It’s a simple concept that puts Rogers in his comfort zone while also giving your best playmaker the ability to attack open space.

But after this?

Three-straight runs, and MSU is forced to kick a FG. Obviously Barbay believed State could still get good push up front, and I won’t suggest you have to abandon the run game just because it slows down. But why not give Rogers more opportunities with plays that fit his skillset, especially after they’ve been successful?

It’s hard to tell why exactly we saw a vanilla gameplan throughout. Did State expect to be able to simply out-athlete Arizona and didn’t want to reveal too much with SEC play about to start? Were they confident in being able to hold-off the Cats with that approach even after they began to seriously challenge them? Or was this really just what the offense will be?

Regardless of the reason, it didn’t go as planned. But Mississippi State still managed to get a win. That’s what’s ultimately important. Hopefully they can sort out some of the issues and have a better approach going forward.