Mississippi State football: 5 concerning stats from loss to Alabama

7: the number of pass plays of 15 or more yards allowed

Mississippi State’s secondary has had issues all throughout the season up to this point. Big plays have been allowed left and right by this defense, which struggles to consistently pressure opposing quarterbacks and then really struggles when athletic and dynamic receivers get into open space.

Unfortunately for Mississippi State, Alabama was able to generate a number of big plays. The Crimson Tide only completed 10 passes on Saturday, but seven of them were for at least 15 yards.

Jalen Milroe hasn’t proven to be a great quarterback just yet, but he sure looked clean and efficient against MSU.

16.4: the average yards per completion from Milroe

So yeah, when a quarterback is effortlessly completing passes for huge chunks of yardage down field at any given time, he’s going to have a high yards per completion average. When you contrast that against how Will Rogers averaged 7.1 yards per completion, it’s pretty frustrating to see how Alabama was able to execute on Saturday.

Miss. State just couldn’t keep up with that. The defense had no way of containing Milroe consistently due to depth issues up front and then the offense couldn’t keep up with Alabama’s scoring.

Giving up yards and points by the dozen won’t exactly win the Bulldogs many games this season. Hopefully Mississippi State will be able to get some of these areas improved and maybe we’ll see some of these areas of concern addressed moving forward.