Mississippi State Football Film Study: Western Michigan

Takeaways from Mississippi State football’s game vs Western Michigan

It’s hard to feel much different about Mississippi State at this point. It’s fairly well-established that this team simply isn’t good, and this game didn’t change anyone’s perception.

The offense had a solid day, and they’ve shown some life over the last three weeks. But this was also a game against a bottom-tier MAC team that’s been surrendering about 37 points per game. You expect them to handle their business, and it’s not like they were just mechanical at how they attacked Western Michigan’s defense.

You still see an offense without a set identity. There’s more of that with Mike Wright at QB because of his particular skillset, but does that approach actually increase your shot at winning? I am not convinced that it does, though there’s a chance we’ll soon find out. Regardless of who’s at QB, the issues along the OL and injuries to skill players makes it hard for me to believe the offense will ever fully takeoff this season.

Defensively, what else can be said at this point? This was the type of game where you’d hope they’d figure some things out, get some momentum into the bye, and come off the bye with an improved approach. Technically the last point could still happen, but they neither figured things out nor created momentum. So I’m not holding out hope by improvements.

Basically everything that has been bad about the defense was bad against WMU. There’s no clear-cut answer as to what they should adjust schematically, though I still tend to believe they need to play less aggressive in coverage. But overall, there’s just a lack of talent on the defense right now. It’s baffling, but this is one of the least impressive defensive groups MSU has had in a long time. It may be time for a youth movement just to start getting younger players ready for the next season.

State has a lot to figure out over the bye week. How they perform coming out of it may decide the future of the program.