While there were some bright spots for the Mississippi State football team this past Saturday, there might be a grim reality facing the Bulldogs for the rest of the season.
There was good news and bad news for the Mississippi State football team this past Saturday in Columbia, SC. The good news was the Bulldogs showed some life offensively by racking up over 500 yards of total offense and scoring 30 points. The bad news is the Gamecocks put up 37 points and Mississippi State lost by a touchdown.
What I’ve been wondering…
The one thing that has dominated my thoughts on this Mississippi State football team since Saturday night is if the defense has regressed to the point it was at when Peter Sirmon was the defensive coordinator in 2016.
Things were really bad then, and they are really bad now.
Currently, the Mississippi State football defense is giving up 400 yards of offense to the opposing team. The only team in the SEC worse than that is the team the Bulldogs just played. South Carolina is giving up 420 yards per game.
When looking at points allowed per game, it doesn’t get much better for the Mississippi State football team.
The Bulldogs are allowing 34 points per game currently. The only SEC team doing worse is the Vanderbilt Commodores.
So does this mean the Mississippi State football team needs to score 40 points a game to even have a chance to win an SEC game?
I’m afraid that it might.
The Mississippi State football team has played two SEC games so far and they have given up 41 and 37 points. The quarterbacks in those two games combined for these stats.
- 48 completions on 54 attempts, that’s an 89% completion percentage.
- 649 passing yards
- Five passing touchdowns with no interceptions
Somehow, playing against the Mississippi State football defense turns opposing quarterbacks into Heisman Trophy candidates.
So what’s the solution?
There is some good news for the Mississippi State football team’s defensive unit. The past three years, the defense has been one of the best in the SEC. The person who led those units to such high standards is still on the sideline every single game.
The last thing I wanted for new Mississippi State football coach Zach Arnett to start doing was meddling with the offense. He’s a defensive guy, and I didn’t want him messing with the offense. But since the defense is as bad as it has been in nearly a decade, I’m all for him tinkering with whatever Matt Brock and company are doing and trying to get it right.
If Zach Arnett can get the defense rolling again, I think there is hope for the 2023 Mississippi State football team. If he can’t, his tenure as the head coach of the Bulldogs will end up being very short lived.
What I’ve been watching…
Ryan Nelson and I didn’t get a chance to record this week due to some back problems I was experiencing. But there were a few episodes of The Main Attraction Podcast I didn’t get to share with you guys.
Up first is a blast from the past for those of us who loved the Transformers when we were children. The new Transformers movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, made its way to Paramount Plus not to long ago, so we decided to give it a whirl. You can listen to us opine about it here.
Next, we went back about ten years or so and talked about a show I never saw. That show is Fargo. The fifth season is coming out in November, and one of our Patrons from our Patreon, you can join that by clicking here, suggested we watch the first four seasons and discuss them on the podcast. It’s a great show and you can listen to us wax poetically about it right here.
What I’ve been whistling to…
Maren Morris has been around for nearly a decade crooning out her tracks on country radio. She hasn’t been a real big fan of the direction country music has gone recently, and one of her most recent songs reflect those feelings.
It’s a song I really enjoy and reflects a lot of my personal feelings as well. Give it a listen if you haven’t already.
This weekend probably won’t be much better for the Mississippi State football team as the Bulldogs welcome the Alabama Crimson Tide to town. But after that, the games get a lot more winnable. So maybe there will be some good things to talk about in the coming weeks.