Brian Kelly explains the difficulty in preparing for Mississippi State's offense

Head coach Brian Kelly and his LSU team open up their SEC schedule this weekend as they take on Mississippi State at home. The Bulldogs are notorious for their air raid, offensive attack led by head coach Mike Leach, and Kelly spoke on the challenges of facing their offensive scheme.

“I think perceptually that people think there’s a lot of curveballs, but this is dive, QB keep, or pitch,” Kelly said. “There’s maybe four, five, six concepts that are run so well and so efficiently that if you get too cute on defense, that’s where you get exposed. Or you try to do one thing to take it away, if you play too much man, if you play too much three-man rush, if you try to be one dimensional defensively that’s where you get in trouble.”

Mississippi State may only have a few run plays on their call sheet, but they run them effectively, along with a passing attack that’s been consistently ranking near the top of the national standings on an annual basis since Leach’s arrival. Kelly will try to give Mississippi State quarterback Will Rodgers a variety of looks and run them efficiently, as they plan to stop a quarterback who’s already thrown for 763 yards and 9 touchdowns with a 78.6% completion percentage through two games.

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“So this is really about trying to change up your looks, try to make it so they don’t see the same thing every time, but they’re gonna run what they run. And they just run it better than you can defend it in three days of preparation,” Kelly said.

Kelly compared prepping for the air raid scheme to preparing to play a triple option offense, as the two are unique, intricate schemes and because of their sparsity across college football provide a major challenge to prepare for and defend if run efficiently.

“And again I go back to that, I know you’re gonna get sick of the option, triple option analogy, but it’s so true in that this is the air raid concept,” Kelly explained. They run it better than you can defend it in three days. So you better tackle, you better have a really good plan on some of the things they really like to do, or you’re gonna get exposed.”

The Tiger’s defense surely has their work cut out for them, as Mississippi State currently averages 44 points per game through week 2. LSU gets back star defensive end BJ Ojulari and potentially cornerback Sevyn Banks back from injury for this week’s matchup, who would both be crucial in slowing down Leach’s high-powered aerial attack.