Mississippi State Football Defensive Film Study: Examining Alabama

What went wrong for Mississippi State football’s defense against Alabama?

Now we turn to the not-so-great moments. Unfortunately, there were plenty. Mississippi State’s defense has been bad in nearly every phase this season. They’ve been terrible in coverage. They’ve been terrible at generating a pass rush. They’ve been terrible at containing mobile QBs (that’s been a theme for several years now). And recently, they haven’t been particularly good at stopping the run, which had been the one thing they could hang their hat on.

As I just highlighted, the pass rush was slightly better in this game. But overall, they still allowed Jalen Milroe plenty of time to find open receivers downfield. Milroe went 10/12 for 164 yards. He didn’t have to throw it much, but when he did, he was able to find his guys for significant gains. Oddly, I didn’t think the coverage was actually that bad. The problem is, more often than not, Milore was able to move around long enough for someone to get open. Coverage can only hold up for so long.

Take this example. This is on a 2nd & 23 early in the fourth quarter. The game was already decided at this point, but that doesn’t excuse what happens here. State plays Cover 3. The ESPN camera angle makes it impossible to see what the pass concept is from Alabama, but clearly, State has it covered well. Milroe works all the way through his progression across the field without throwing the ball.

You’d hope your pass rush would’ve arrived before that point, but at the bare minimum, you expect to now have the pressure get home and bring down the QB. But that’s not what happens. Alabama’s OL easily picks up the stunts from State’s pass rushers, and no one gets any pressure. After what feels like an eternity, Nathan Pickering is able to win just enough to force Milroe out of the pocket.

The threat of Milroe scrambling draws in some of State’s underneath coverage players (who’d been doing literally all they could do up until this point), which in turn leaves the TE open in the flat. Milroe dumps it off to him, and he’s got a wide open lane down the field to get the first down.

You can understand why Milroe’s legs would’ve had State’s defenders weary to this point. He ran for 69 yards and two TDs in the game, both of which came off of scrambles. The Crimson Tide’s first TD of the game came off a 53-yard scramble from Milroe.

Alabama calls an Inside Zone Hitch RPO. Their OL is blocking for the Inside Zone run while their WRs run hitch routes. This is a pre-snap decision for the QB. If he sees the defense playing soft coverage, he can choose to throw whichever of the hitch routes he deems most-favorable rather than hand the ball of to the RB.

Milroe sees soft coverage across the board and two high safeties. He thinks State is in a zone, and he’ll have an easy completion throwing a hitch out wide. But State is actually playing man free and disguising the pressure. When he goes to throw, he has Jett Johnson flying off the edge at him. It’s not entirely clear if it’s the threat of Johnson batting down the ball that stops him from throwing or if he realizes too late the defense is in man and can sit on the hitch routes (although his slot was open enough for him to get it there).

Regardless, Milroe doesn’t trust the throw, and having already passed on handing the ball off to his RB, he has no choice but to tuck it and run. If he had handed the ball off, Bama’s OL had paved a wide open running lane through the play-side A-gap through which the RB could hit for a big gain. Instead, Milroe himself runs through the open gap. With both of MSU’s containment defenders on the backside of the play and a safety rotating that direction, there is no one in position to make a tackle on Milroe. He gets into open space and outruns the secondary for the score.

I mentioned that the Tide’s OL had opened up a clear running lane on that scramble for the intended run concept. That was a bit of a theme in this game. Bama’s RBs combined for 129 yards on 30 carries. That’s much more success allowed to ball carriers than we’re accustomed to with this defense, and it’s now consecutive weeks that an offense that hadn’t previously found much success in run blocking managed to push around the Bulldog defense.

As I noted previously, State was down multiple DL, so their depth was thin at that spot. They weren’t put in a great spot and had to go with some unique rotations. But that doesn’t excuse a lack of tackling, which once again, was a problem.

Look at this run on 2nd & Goal late in the first half with State down seven. State has seven defenders in the box plus a safety over top that’s aggressively playing the run. Alabama just runs basic Inside Zone. The threat of Milroe keeping the ball around the edge does create some hesitation from a few defenders, but that’s not why this run ends up being effective.

Both SLB JP Purvis and DE Deonte Anderson burst through and have chances to stop the RB for a loss. They still have blocks to fight through, but they’re in position to make the tackle. Once the back gets past that initial line, there’s space for him to get a few yards. But a few yards turns into eight in the exact same way that South Carolina picked up the game-winning TD over State in Week 4. Multiple defenders just completely fail to make the tackle. The RB keeps churning ahead with a lineman ahead to drive the defense back. This sets up a 3rd & Goal from the two, which Bama easily punches in.

State getting pushed around up front when their strength is supposed to be their run defense is concerning enough. But I can at least someone understand that with the injury issues, they were in a tough spot. But totally whiffing on tackles is inexcusable.