Chris Jans shares message to Mississippi State players amid losing stretch

Following an 11-0 start to the season, Mississippi State has since gone 1-5, most recently dropping two straight games on the road versus Georgia and Auburn. There’s no question that the Bulldogs’ conference schedule has given them problems early on, which head coach Chris Jans recently detailed.

“We were confident heading into both of these games on the road, I told them before we left and reminded them a couple times before we tipped that we expected to win this game, talking about the Georgia game Wednesday and then the Auburn game on Saturday, that our goal was to be 2-0 after this trip and we had a good couple of days of preparation for each particular game,” Jans said.

Mississippi State’s two most recent losses were by single-digit scoring margins, and Jans still believes that the makeup of his team makes them capable of securing big wins. They just need to make a few critical plays down the stretch in order to turn their close losses to close wins.

“I say it all the time, and I know it’s coach speak, but at the end of the day it always comes down to a handful of plays that impact the final result and both of these games had a handful of plays that severely impacted the result, and unfortunately we weren’t on the correct part if you will of the play,” Jans said. “The one thing that we talked a lot about pregame, during the game, postgame was our fight, our togetherness in order to win games in this league regardless if you’re home or away, you better have that. Unless of course you have superior talent and sometimes it doesn’t matter if one has so much talent comparative to the other team, but that wasn’t the case this week.”

Hopefully, the Bulldogs can diagnose what exactly it will take for them to get over the hump. But they may want to do it fast, as they face a No. 9 ranked Tennessee team in their next matchup that defeated them by 34 points just two weeks ago.

“We were right there and had opportunities and we just didn’t get it done, but like I told them postgame, I love being their coach. We’ve got great kids, by in large they work hard every day, they got the right approach, they got really good togetherness, they want to win in the worst way, they’re very disappointed, upset, but I don’t think they’re dejected,” Jans explained. “I don’t think they’re like oh, woe is me or the season’s over, they want to do better, they want to do right and they want to win and they want to be rewarded for the hard work. So we’ll see how this week goes.”