Mike Leach updates the position battle at right guard as season nears

Mike Leach provided an update on the raging position battle at right guard for Mississippi State on Saturday.

At the moment, Leach knows it’s between three talented athletes for the position — Albert Reese, Kameron Jones and Cole Smith. Speaking with the media, the Bulldogs coach elaborated on who’s standing out among the three.

“He’s in the middle of a big war with Kam and Albert, you know. He’s battling out with those guys,” Leach responded, when asked about Smith. “So really those three are battling it out for who has the majority of the reps. We want to have a guy to that side though, no matter what.”

Nevertheless, all three have made their impression on Mike Leach — but only one can be the starting right guard for Mississippi State. Time will tell who impresses the Bulldogs leader the most, but its evident Leach has plans to get all three reps during the 2022 season.

Mike Leach identifies which position group is in serious need of developing toughness

Aside from quarterback, there may not be a position more important in Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach‘s air raid offense than the receiver position. But after the Bulldog’s first scrimmage of fall camp, Leach wanted to see more out of his wide receiver group in regards to physicality and toughness.

“I think we’re getting better, I think we’ve got to get tougher at receiver. I think those receivers spend a certain amount of time being awfully willing to get shoved around, but just overall we just have to have overall improvement, and then we’re still developing depth in the o-line,” Leach said.

This is a good sign for the Mississippi State defense, but not necessarily for the offense. Especially one that’s as reliant on their receivers as the Bulldogs are, as they lead the SEC in total passing yards and passing yards per game last season.

“Yeah we’re better in the secondary and we just have to answer the challenge of receiver. We make too many judgements on when the ball is going to come to us and I think as a team we do it some, but I think the receivers do it even more and we just have to be tougher people. And we’ve got a weird mix, we’ve got old guys and real young and we need to develop some of those guys that are kind of the middle experience guys,” Leach said.