Mike Leach reveals takeaways from watching Tennessee offense vs. Alabama

Mississippi State coach Mike Leach is thanking his lucky stars the Bulldogs didn’t draw Tennessee on their schedule this season. State’s road following the Kentucky loss only gets tougher as it is. They visit Alabama this week and still have matchups with top-10 Georgia and Ole Miss later in the year. A brutal back-half stretch for MSU.

In need of a bounce back in one of the hardest games of the year, at ‘Bama, perhaps Leach can learn a thing or two from Josh Heupel and the Vols, who just hung 52 points on the Tide in a walk-off win. The Mississippi State coach definitely took notice of that result, and noted in particular how Tennessee kept Alabama off balance with an up-tempo attack.

“You know, I just, I thought that Tennessee played really fast. I thought that the quarterback and the receivers were really on the same page and had some pretty good timing, too, when they got some of their explosive plays,” said Leach. “That was a really tight back and forth game.”

Mississippi hopes to find themselves in a tight game with the Tide late. Tennessee was able to get perfect execution in the second half, especially between Hendon Hooker and wideout Jalin Hyatt, who connected for five touchdowns on the day. After failing to execute offensively down the stretch vs. Kentucky, Mississippi State is aiming to look more like the Vols this coming Saturday.

Speaking of which — Leach also added that he sees similarities between the Bulldogs and the Volunteers on offense under Heupel.

“He’s definitely got some things that look familiar,” Leach said. “I can think of a play in particular that we ran back in the day. He’s got his quarterback running that play better than we ran it. So, yeah.”

No team in the country is getting as great of QB play as Tennessee. But the Bulldogs hope to have enough in order to stay competitive with Alabama. And Mike Leach thinks the Vols laid the blueprint for how to score on this Saban team.