Mississippi State Football Film Preview: Examining Arkansas’ Defense

Mississippi State football will have their hands full with the Arkansas pass rush.

What stands out the most from the Arkansas defense is their pass rush. The Razorbacks are averaging right at three sacks a game. I mentioned how Travis Williams plays a more aggressive style defensively. The Hogs will show a variety of pressures to get after opposing QBs. That’s concerning for a Mississippi State OL that has struggled mightily with protecting its passers.

Arkansas had a five sack performance against Alabama. The Tide, like State (and like Arkansas themselves, for that matter), have been poor in pass protection all season, even with a mobile QB in Jalen Milroe. Milroe lacks pocket presence and isn’t great at diagnosing defenses. With Bama’s OL having major struggles, this was an opportunity for the Razorback pass rushers to strike, and that they did.

Here they send hybrid safety/nickel Hudson Clark on a man free blitz. Arkansas initially aligns in a 2-high look with Clark showing man coverage on the slot receiver. When the slot shifts to the left side of the formation, Arkansas shifts into a 1-high look with the free safety walking down to take the slot, strong safety rotating to the middle of the field, and Clark playing in the box over the TE.

Bama puts the slot in motion back to the right, and with this, the safeties rotate back the other way. The strong safety runs with the slot while the free safety takes over the middle of the field. But this time Clark stays put because ultimately his job here is to rush off the edge.

Bama slides their protection to the left and pulls a guard to the right with the play-action fake to the slot receiver on the jet sweep. That guard is going to pick up the strong-side DE, and with the rest of the protection sliding away from the blitzing Clark and both the TE and RB free-releasing into routes, no one accounts for Clark.

I’m not sure Milroe ever recognizes that Clark is blitzing because otherwise, he probably looks to throw hot to his WR at the bottom of the screen running a slant on the side Clark is coming from. Instead, he looks to hit his RB out of the backfield on a rail route to the opposite side, but he doesn’t like the look with a LB chasing in man coverage. By the time he wants to get to his second read, Clark is already on him. At the same time, the weakside DE has won against the LT to also get in on the sack.

Regardless of who plays QB for Mississippi State on Saturday, they’re going to have to do a good job of identifying pressures and getting to the right looks based on that. Otherwise, they could have a rough go of things.

But even when Arkansas doesn’t blitz, they’ve got the talent up front to still feast against struggling OLs. Landon Jackson and Trajan Jeffcoat combine for a formidable duo along the DL. Jackson dominated against Alabama with 3.5 sacks. And you’ll on this sack from Jackson that even if hadn’t gotten home, DT Eric Gregory also won his rep to finish the job.

All indications seem to be the Mike Wright will start for Mississippi State against the Hogs. His mobility gives State the chance to potentially avoid some of these pressures in a way that Will Rogers hasn’t been able to. But Arkansas has gotten after just as many dual threat QBs as they have pocket passers this season. There are some sacks that no one is escaping, and the Bulldog OL has allowed quite a few of those this year. They need a strong showing on Saturday.