Jeff Lebby shares how hectic weekend in SEC impacts Mississippi State's preparation

After one of the wildest weekends in recent memory in the SEC, there are probably a handful of teams wondering if they can salvage their season by being the next Vanderbilt. Mississippi State is one of them.

But coach Jeff Lebby is being careful to caution his players not to get too far ahead of themselves. In fact, if they want to spring that kind of upset, they need to be methodical about their approach.

“I think for us it’s still about what we do with our time and how we practice, how we meet, how we walk through,” Lebby said this week. “That is, to me, what it’s all about. And that is what will give us a chance to go play the best ball that we’ve played, is focusing on us and making sure we’re doing everything we can to be the best version of us Saturday at 3:15 in Athens. And that is, without a doubt, the goal.”

Mississippi State doesn’t have to wait long for its Vanderbilt-like opportunity. The Bulldogs will travel to No. 5 Georgia this weekend to take on another set of conference Bulldogs.

Few would expect an upset; Mississippi State opened as a 34.5-point underdog.

Moreover, the Bulldogs have lost four straight games going into this one and only one of those losses has been particularly close. By all accounts, this is one of the teams in the SEC struggling the most.

But they play the games for a reason. And Lebby believes his squad has made some bye week improvements.

“We got very specific with some things that we had to get cleaned up, both sides of the ball and special teams,” Lebby said. “And we’re talking about in between the white lines. Then I did, I thought it was important for our guys to be able to get away a little bit, reset, refocus, regroup and get ready for this back half of the season.”

The good news? Lebby feels Mississippi State is as energized as it’s been in a hot minute. Enough to spring a huge, Vanderbilt-like upset?

We’ll see.

“As we got in the building this morning, our guys did, they had great energy,” Lebby said. “They’ve had great energy. There’s really good intent, and we need to have a great week to be able to play the way we need to play.”