Mississippi State football: 7 worrisome stats from win vs. Arkansas

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FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS – OCTOBER 21: Mike Wright #14 hands off the ball to JoQuavious Marks #7 of the Mississippi State Bulldogs during the game against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium on October 21, 2023 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Bulldogs defeated the Razorbacks 7-3. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images) /

8 and 49- The number of penalties and penalty yards for the Bulldogs

Throughout the season up to this point, one thing Zach Arnett and his Mississippi State football coaching staff have done particularly well is limiting penalties and errors. We’ve seen other first year head coaches of the MSU Bulldogs really botch this part of coaching the Bulldogs, but thankfully that’s not happening this year.

Unfortunately, as the Mississippi State Bulldogs battled the Arkansas Razorbacks, MSU made a few crucial errors and had a number of miscommunications.

As a whole, 8 penalties for 49 yards? That’s not bad. But it’s where these penalties came up that is a problem for the Bulldogs.

One major error for the Bulldogs was how Mississippi State had a drive in the midst of the third quarter run into issues with a number of penalties when backed against the end zone. The Bulldogs drive itself involved seven plays. In that bunch of plays was one illegal procedure, two false starts, and an illegal block that prevented a Wright touchdown run.

Unsurprisingly, MSU punted.

There’s a whole thing that we could spend time discussing about how Arnett and MSU preferred to take a couple delay of game penalties instead of going for it in manageable fourth down territories.

Those costly infractions killed MSU’s potential and routinely forced the Bulldogs to be playing in less-than-ideal circumstances. Miss. State can’t afford to do that against some of the remaining teams on the schedule.

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