Zach Arnett shares what he saw from Mississippi State's defense

Mississippi State head coach Zach Arnett, as a former defensive coordinator, loves to see an excellent defensive effort from his Bulldogs. That’s exactly what he got from the defense last Saturday, holding Arkansas to just three points.

After the game, Arnett shared what he saw from his defense that made it so effective against Arkansas.

“I don’t think anything changed preparation-wise,” Zach Arnett said. “We’ve got a lot of competitors on that side of the ball. We’ve got a lot of competitors in our program.”

Mississippi State has been struggling in its first season under Zach Arnett. The Bulldogs are 4-3 overall but just 1-3 within the SEC. In their previous three SEC games, the Bulldogs struggled defensively, allowing 39.3 points per game in conference play.

“We’ve seen the stats. We know the results. We’re not up to our satisfactory level, and so they went to work during the bye week. That’s what you do. There ain’t no magic formula. You put in the work and you show up every day for practice and you take a critical eye at situations that you failed to perform and then you go about correcting them,” Arnett said. “So, I give all the credit to those guys for really being man enough to take coaching during the bye week and last week, and actually put it to good use and go out. Now, they see the fruits of their labor.”

Next Saturday, Mississippi State will travel on the road again next week to take on the Auburn Tigers. To this point in the season, Auburn has also struggled in SEC play, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.

Zach Arnett explains thought process of fourth down decisions against Arkansas

Mississippi State, for all its success on defense, still struggled on the offensive side of the ball. At one point in the game, Zach Arnett was going to go for it on fourth down but a false start led to a punt.

After the game, Arnett explained his thought process on fourth down.

“That was the shortest one of any fourth down so we did decide to go for it. It was inside of a yard. It was a half yard. Other times, I know one was a 4th-and-4 after a scramble. Another one was a 4th-and two or three right around there. You’re constantly evaluating what’s our game plan? Do we feel really good about our short yardage call? How’s the flow of the game going? I made a decision several times that — defense was obviously playing well. Their three points came off of a turnover on the opening drive where they started with the ball deep in the territory, and so they really had not allowed the offense to march the length of the field and score points. Obviously, that is why you try to punt it down in there and create a long field,” Arnett said.

“There are certain down and distances where you feel like you gotta be able to get that yardage if you’re gonna win a football game. Inside of a yard there. We had the touchdown called back just before that I believe. We felt good about our play, felt good about our play, felt good about our plan in that down and distance. An opportunity to create some huge momentum and go and to try to take the game. Obviously, we didn’t execute the alignment and it worked out in our favor there.”