Interesting analysis from TeamSpeedKills...

[dawgstudent]

Discuss. They did other schools as well.

http://www.teamspeedkills...arison-mississippi-state

Since we only have a week of football under our belts, the only thing we can do right now for comparison's sake is look at what teams did last year versus what they did this year. So with that in mind, let's take a look at how Mississippi State did against Southeast Louisiana last year and Jackson State this year. There was a lot of excitement about Dan Mullen's new offense, but how different were the results against a I-AA team?</p>

As with previous comparisons, sack yardage has been taken out of the rushing totals.</p>

OFFENSE</p> <table border="1"> <tbody> <tr style="background-color: rgb(173, 0, 0); color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold;"> <td>CATEGORY</td> <td>vs. SELA</td> <td>vs. JACKSON ST.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Total Yards</td> <td>401</td> <td>410</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Passing</td> <td>185</td> <td>172</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Yds. per Pass</td> <td>6.9</td> <td>6.9</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Rushing</td> <td>216</td> <td>238</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Yds. Per Rush</td> <td>4.7</td> <td>5.3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Turnovers</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Time of Poss.</td> <td>34:06</td> <td>31:02</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sacks All.</td> <td>0</td> <td>0</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

</p>

Strangely, against a I-AA opponent, there was no difference between the Sly Croom offense and the Dan Mullen offense statistically. Yards per pass was identical, they got a half yard more per rush, committed the same number of turnovers, and lost a bit in time of possession. The Bulldogs' offense even ended up getting just four more points this year than last (seven of the 45 total were on an INT return).</p> <p class="extend-divide"><a rel="nofollow" name="storyjump"></a>

</p>

Did the passing game improve its efficiency without Wesley Carroll? Well, no. Three quarterbacks combined to go 18 of 27 last year, and three quarterbacks combined to go 16 of 25 this year. The rushing among the top guys was better, with RB Robert Elliott going for 7.3 yards per rush and QB Chris Relf going for 6.8 yards per rush. It will probably be better when Anthony Dixon comes back from suspension.</p>

DEFENSE</p> <table border="1"> <tbody> <tr style="background-color: rgb(173, 0, 0); color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold;"> <td>CATEGORY</td> <td>vs. SELA</td> <td>vs. JACKSON ST.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Total Yards</td> <td>174</td> <td>204</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Passing</td> <td>115</td> <td>132</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Yds. per Pass</td> <td>5.8</td> <td>6.6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Rushing</td> <td>59</td> <td>72</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Yds. Per Rush</td> <td>2.7</td> <td>2.3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Turnovers</td> <td>1</td> <td>5</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Time of Poss.</td> <td>25:54</td> <td>28:58</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sacks For</td> <td>5 (-26 yards)</td> <td>2 (-10 yards)</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

</p>

Sylvester Croom's teams were always pretty good at defense, and his last one was pretty good at stopping Southeast Louisiana. Mullen's first team was also pretty good at stopping a I-AA team, slipping some in pass defense (though not by much) and hauling in an impressive five turnovers. Granted this isn't some kind of big achievement, but there's not any evidence to suggest yet that the defense is going to fall off because a spread offense has been installed. In other words, Mississippi State isn't a Big 12 team (I kid! I kid!).</p>

I get that there's a lot of excitement over Dan Mullen in Starkville, but he didn't do a whole lot more in his I-AA game than Sylvester Croom did in his last year. Maybe things will look up soon, but the production hasn't changed a whole lot yet.</p>

 

[OMlawdog]

Otherwise they would be knocking down walls.
</p>

 

[biguglyjoe]

Why pass it just for the sake of padding stats when you're running on them at will? It's not as if they were shutting down any aspect of the offense.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

[No message]

 

[8dog]

other than getting our W.

People expect to win 156 to negative 7. They expect us to have 943 total yards.

Comparing Mullen v. Croom against D-1AA schools is stupid.

I hope this site decides to do a comparison of the state-auburn and state-ole miss games as well.

 

[bonedaddy401]

the second game in the FIFTH year of the previous offense. I have faith that Mullen's offense will improve and evolve 5 years from now more than Croom's did.

 

[Bdog9090]

That Mullen did basically the same thing (slightly better) in his first game ever as a head coach that another coach did after 5 years of coaching.

 

[JohnDawg]

I just hope that in 5 years, Mullen is still with us. If we were to play JSU again in 5 years, then we should expect to beat them 156 to -7 with 943 yards of offense. I have faith in Mullen's offense as well.

 

[FlabLoser]

That Mullen did basically the same thing (slightly better) in his first game ever as a head coach that another coach did after 5 years of coaching.

Year 1, game 1 played in the rain = as good or better than what Sly did years after his Gulf Coast Offense was installed.

 

[gtowndawg]

I may have filled my thought quota for the day right off the bat.

 

[maroonmania]

Comparing what one team did against a nobody one year to what another team did against another nobody the next year is just plain dumb. For one thing, I wouldn't have a clue how to compare JSU with SELA athletically. Besides that, this IS the first game under Mullen where obviously some kinks in a new offense are being worked out vs. last year where we were running the same mess that we had been for 4 prior years. This would be like us using comparison stats saying we beat somebody by 50 points and another team ony beat them by 40 points so that proves we are better. Nothing more to say but that how badly an overmatched team gets beat statistically from one team to the next is NOT a good yardstick. What we do the next 2 weeks will tell us a lot about how our team currently stacks up. Last week told us virtually nothing and was really just a glorified exhibition that was used to prepare us to play a REAL game.

 

[Uncle Leo]

And we know how that turned out.

 

[GBryne4Heisman]

Jackson State gave us the ball several time inside their 30. It's tough to rack up impressive stats when you only gotta drive the ball 30 or 40 yards to score.

Having said that, it makes it a little disheartening that we only score 42 pts or whatever it was. Wow, never thought i'd say that as an MSU fan..

 

[patdog]

1. It's a ridiculous comparison.

2. It's game 1 of the Mullen era and a completely new offense vs. year 5 of the Crxxm era. And we all know what Crxxm did against a I-AA opponent in his 1st year. Although, in fairness, I still don't blame that loss entirely on Crxxm. If his RBs had simply held on to the damn ball, we'd have won that game easily.

3. If you're going to take 7 points away from the offense because the defense scored a TD, you've got to also add 6 points because the kicker missed 2 chip shot field goals. So the Mullen offense still scored 10 points more than the Crxxm offense did.

4. When you keep getting the ball on the 40-yard line, you're not going to generate a huge number of yards. There's only 40 of them to reach the goal line.

5. Arguably our best offensive player was suspended from the JSU game, but not from the SELA game. Maybe if he's in the game, he doesn't fumble the ball away twice in scoring territory like Ducre did.

6. Even though Mullen is coaching the offense, he's still coaching Crxxm's mostly ****** players. Give him a chance to get some of his own players into the game and then see how the comparison looks.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

And Maine should have beat us by two touchdowns. I say Crooms was as good in his first 1-AA game as Mullen was bad in his.

 

[Stansfield]

maine

 

[LTblows]

Let's reassess this at a later date. I'd like to see that report showing 2x production.</p>

 

[Stansfield]

Sorry for the formatting
maine msu
FIRST DOWNS................... 10 20
Rushing..................... 6 9
Passing..................... 4 11
Penalty..................... 0 0
NET YARDS RUSHING............. 102 124
Rushing Attempts............ 37 37
Average Per Rush............ 2.8 3.4
Yards Gained Rushing........ 126 171
Yards Lost Rushing.......... 24 47
NET YARDS PASSING............. 124 250
Completions-Attempts-Int.... 10-19-2 21-35-1
Average Per Attempt......... 6.5 7.1
Average Per Completion...... 12.4 11.9
TOTAL OFFENSE YARDS........... 226 374
Total offense plays......... 56 72
Average Gain Per Play....... 4.0 5.2
Fumbles: Number-Lost.......... 0-0 2-2
Penalties: Number-Yards....... 4-24 5-30
PUNTS-YARDS................... 8-372 7-314
Average Yards Per Punt...... 46.5 44.9
Net Yards Per Punt.......... 43.1 41.1
Inside 20................... 3 4
50+ Yards................... 4 2
Touchbacks.................. 0 0
Fair catch.................. 2 1
KICKOFFS-YARDS................ 3-188 2-128
Average Yards Per Kickoff... 62.7 64.0
Net Yards Per Kickoff....... 57.7 53.0
Touchbacks.................. 2 1
Punt returns: Number-Yards-TD. 3-26-0 2-27-0
Average Per Return.......... 8.7 13.5
Kickoff returns: Number-Yds-TD 1-22-0 1-15-0
Average Per Return.......... 22.0 15.0
Interceptions: Number-Yds-TD.. 1-0-0 2-35-0
Fumble Returns: Number-Yds-TD. 0-0-0 0-0-0
Miscellaneous Yards........... 0 0
Possession Time............... 28:39 31:21
1st Quarter................. 10:32 4:28
2nd Quarter................. 5:46 9:14
3rd Quarter................. 5:46 9:14
4th Quarter................. 6:35 8:25
Third-Down Conversions........ 4 of 15 4 of 14
Fourth-Down Conversions....... 0 of 0 0 of 0
Red-Zone Scores-Chances....... 2-2 1-5
Sacks By: Number-Yards........ 2-16 1-3
PAT Kicks..................... 1-0 1-1
Field Goals................... 1-1 0-1