Mississippi State’s path to a win starts on defense, and the assignment is a brutal one: deal with an LSU offense that has been rolling all season.
Through six games, LSU is averaging 524.8 yards per game and 42 points per game, which tells you exactly what the Bulldogs are walking into in Starkville. This isn’t a unit you shut down easily. But the source of the game plan is clear enough - Mississippi State doesn’t need perfection, just enough resistance to make LSU work for everything.
The first job is slowing the run. LSU running back Dillin Jones has been the workhorse, piling up 110 carries for 449 yards and five touchdowns.
He’s the kind of back who can keep an offense on schedule, and LSU leans on him to do exactly that. The Bulldogs will need discipline against the zone read, because LSU uses it to force defenders to hesitate and guess wrong.
That ties directly to the bigger problem: Sam Leavitt. He’s productive, with 1,496 passing yards and 10 touchdowns, but he’s also put the ball in harm’s way eight times with interceptions. Mississippi State’s defense will try to disguise coverages and tempt him into another mistake.
There’s also the matter of disrupting LSU’s rhythm. Kiffin’s offense likes to stack plays, stay ahead of the sticks, and keep moving down the field. If Mississippi State can swarm the ball carrier and knock the Tigers off schedule, it can make that offense a lot less dangerous.
Kentucky showed the blueprint last week. The Wildcats held LSU to 100 rushing yards and forced Leavitt into a heavier passing load.
He responded with 275 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. LSU still found ways to move the ball, because it mixes the run and pass well and punishes mistakes when they appear.
That’s the challenge in front of Will Arnett and the Mississippi State defense. Stopping LSU completely may not be realistic. Slowing the Tigers down just enough, though, could be the difference.
In Other News...
Mississippi State Finally Lands A Future Series That Solves A Real Problem
Mississippi State has locked in a future football home-and-home with Oklahoma State, a move that gives the Bulldogs a high-profile nonconference opponent and helps clear one of the practical hurdles in SEC scheduling. The agreement gives the two programs a familiar kind of pairing, with a past history that dates back to meetings on campus and at neutral sites, and it adds a power opponent to Mississippi States long-range slate at a time when every one of those openings matters.
For the Bulldogs, the bigger significance may be less about the matchup itself than about what it does for the schedule around it. SEC teams are required to line up nonconference games against Power Four opponents, and this arrangement steps into a spot that had been left open after other series fell through. Mississippi State still has a ways to go before those dates arrive, but at least one future problem on the calendar is no longer a problem. [Read more 🡒]
Mississippi States Upset Hopes May Come Down To One Offensive Question
Jeff Lebby gets another chance to measure his Mississippi State team against the SEC's upper tier this week, with a trip to Tiger Stadium carrying plenty of attention for a Bulldogs program still trying to find its footing. The matchup brings Lebby face to face with former Ole Miss colleague Lane Kiffin and LSU in a top-25 setting, but the bigger concern for Mississippi State is less about the opponent and more about how the offense can function against a favored Tigers team.
The Bulldogs were already leaning on a limited ground game after the loss to Alabama, and now the quarterback situation adds another layer of uncertainty. Kamario Taylor is questionable, leaving Mississippi State with a key decision looming at the game's most important position as it tries to keep an upset bid alive against an LSU defense that has shown some give this season. [Read more 🡒]
Mississippi State Heads To LSU With Its Offense Suddenly In Doubt
Mississippi States trip to LSU has taken on a different feel with the offense suddenly in question. Quarterback Kamario Taylor and running back Fluff Bothwell both showed up as questionable on the SEC availability report, leaving the Bulldogs with more uncertainty than they wanted heading into a tough road game.
Taylor has been working through a foot injury and has not completed a full practice since the Alabama game, while Bothwell has also been dealing with an injury suffered in that same loss. For a Mississippi State offense already trying to regain its footing, the status of its quarterback and its top rusher is the kind of late-week wrinkle that can shape everything from the game plan to the pace of the night in Baton Rouge. [Read more 🡒]