For most of Saturday afternoon, Mississippi State’s defense looked like it had finally shown up the way Jeff Lebby has wanted all season. Then Oklahoma started ripping off explosives, and Davis Wade Stadium emptied with the Bulldogs on the wrong end of the score.
Isaiah Sategna III was the biggest problem. He turned three catches into 138 yards, with gains of 54, 48 and 36 yards. By the end of the day, he had eight receptions for 164 yards and a touchdown.
Oklahoma tight end Rocky Beers added a 32-yard touchdown, and quarterback John Mateer went 22 of 29 for 283 yards and two scores.
After the game, a reporter noted that Sategna and Beers came in responsible for roughly 51% of Oklahoma’s receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns, and asked what made them so difficult to handle. Lebby credited them, but he also made it clear where the pain came from.
“Yeah, they made a couple of really competitive plays. The one on the third down, obviously, one’s running through the middle of the field, which was frustrating. Their chunk plays offensively, to me, was the difference in the game,” Lebby said.
“That and third downs defensively, loved our effort, our attitude, our physicality, I thought we attacked. We gave up chunks at the wrong times. And those moments, they were frustrating.”
The timing made each one sting more. Sategna’s 54-yard catch came on third-and-6 in the third quarter. Beers’ touchdown came on second-and-14 to finish a three-play drive that opened the second half.
Then came Sategna’s 36-yard touchdown, which landed with 39 seconds left in the first half after Mississippi State had punted.
“Again, I punted the ball at the end of the first half and had the ability to go down and get a stop,” Lebby said. “That was a frustrating turnaround there.”
Lebby kept circling back to missed opportunities and breakdowns that the Bulldogs simply could not afford.
“Yeah, we will have to go watch it. I thought we were in position on a couple of them, and we don’t make the play. They do make the play,” Lebby said.
“We had a bust where we can’t have a bust situationally. That gives them a chunk.
They take advantage of that. And those are the things that we’ve got to take completely out of the game.”
The box score backed up the feeling that Mississippi State’s defense was active without finishing. Despite the aggressive approach Lebby described, the Bulldogs recorded one sack, two tackles for loss and no three-and-outs.
Still, there were signs of progress. Oklahoma had to settle for six field goal attempts and scored only two touchdowns, and Kendel Dolby recovered a Beers fumble near midfield in the third quarter.
“Really disappointing and frustrating that we don’t find a way to get it done. Again, defensively, I loved our attitude.
I loved the way we attacked. I thought we did some great things.
The chunk plays, man, were so timely,” Lebby said.
“And that was the frustrating piece of our defense today. But I do think we played much, much better team defense today, 95% of the game. Again, we got to continue to shore up that other 5% to give us a chance to go do what we want to do.”
That last part is the issue. Mississippi State gave Oklahoma enough of the game, but the late and untimely explosives decided it. With Texas next, the Bulldogs do not have much margin left for giving up chunks at the worst possible moments.
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