Jeff Lebby sees simple solution to Mississippi State football's run defense woes

Mississippi State football's defense had a rough night in their 30-23 loss to Arizona State. MSU allowed 346 yards rushing to the Sun Devils, the program's worst performance in rush defense since 2016.

But for as awful as it was, Bulldogs' head coach Jeff Lebby thinks there's a very straightforward issue that must be resolved to fix the run defense.

""It's one story, and it's tackling. 25 missed tackles, over 250 yards after contact...There were plenty of times that we were in position, and we've got to get the guy on the ground.""

- Jeff Lebby

There's no doubt that tackling was a massive problem against Arizona State. Twice on State's opening defensive possession, Sun Devil QB Sam Leavitt managed to escape tacklers in the backfield for big gains, with his second carry going for a touchdown.

While Leavitt made a few would-be tacklers look silly, RB Cam Skattebo bullied the Bulldog defenders. Nearly every time Skattebo touched the ball, he managed to avoid going down on first contact. There were multiple occasions he didn't go down on second contact.

There's a reason Skattebo ran for 262 yards and had nearly 300 yards of offense in this game. Mississippi State simply could not get him to the ground.

DC Coleman Hutzler's decision to primarily stay in 3-high safety looks on defense was baffling given ASU's approach on offense, but it looked worse than it was in theory because of the insane number of missed tackles. Not helping matters was that along with missing tackles, State's LBs and safeties didn't fly to the ball in the way you have to if you're going to play that style of defense.

There's no excusing poor tackling. Regardless of scheme and talent level (both factors that appear questionable at the moment), you still have to be sound tackling the ball-carrier. There were plays to be made and stops to be had on defense if MSU simply tackled better against ASU. That will have to improve if the Bulldogs are going to have any sort of success the rest of the season.