LSU Opponent Preview 2023: Mississippi State

After facing Florida State and Grambling state to start the year, LSU dives straight into conference play with a road game at Mississippi State in week three on Saturday, Sept. 16.

We’re continuing our opponent preview series, looking at the 11 FBS games on LSU’s schedule, this time diving into the Bulldogs’ roster, expectations, and more. As one of LSU’s longest tenured rivals, it’s always interesting when the two pair up, and it will be the same this year.

We are just over three weeks from the SEC media days, so it’s time to start our dive into previewing the 2023 football season.

Prior teams: Florida State

Head coach: Zach Arnett (1st year as HC, 4th on staff)

Offensive coordinator: Kevin Barbay (1st year)

Defensive coordinator: Matt Brock (4th year on staff, 1st as DC)

Last year

The Bulldogs suffered tragedy with head coach Mike Leach’s death on Dec. 12. The loss shook the entire college football world and will continue to be mourned. 

On the field, Leach’s team had a terrific season, finishing 9-4 with wins in the Egg Bowl and in the ReliaQuest Bowl over Illinois. If you look at the Bulldogs;’ four losses, they were against Georgia, at LSU, at Alabama, and at Kentucky. It was a challenging schedule and Mississippi State handled it impressively, blowing out Texas A&M, Arkansas, Arizona, and Memphis as well.

This is a program that is consistently competitive and has reached 13 straight bowl games and in that stretch has won eight or more games seven times.

Offense

Under Leach, Mississippi State once again led the country in pass attempts for the season as Will Rogers completed 68 percent of his 610 attempts for 35 touchdowns and eight interceptions. As always, the yards per completion numbers were low with this many attempts including dump downs and screens, but it’s still an offense that scored 31.6 points per game with a brutal schedule.

Defense

Zach Arnett was awesome last year, getting the absolute most out of this Bulldog defense. Mississippi State ended the year 17th in yards per play allowed, 25th in 3rd down defense, and had 14 interceptions with three returned for touchdowns. His defense ranked 24th in EPA per play, a number that will keep Mississippi State very competitive in the SEC.

The bulldogs had three players on the All-SEC second team with CB Emmanuel Forbes, DL Tyrus Wheat, and DL Nathaniel Watson.

Offseason moves

Notable departures

Drafted: CB Emmanuel Forbes (9th overall, 1st round), Cameron Young (123rd overall, 4th round)

Transferred: WR Rara Thomas, WR Caleb Ducking, RB Dillon Johnson, WR Christian Ford, WB Sawyer Robertson, S Dylan Lawrence, DE Javon Banks, RB Ke’Travion Hargrove, WR Marquez Dortch, CB Audavion Collins.

Obviously, losing Forbes, who was awesome in his years in Starkville, hurts, but the big transfer name here is Rara Thomas who went to Georgia. Ducking is also in the portal but has not committed to another program. That’s their two best receivers from last year gone.

Big time additions

2023 Freshmen: S Isaac Smith, WR Creed Whittemore, WR Justin Brown, RB Seth Davis

Transfers: CB Raydarious Jones, CB Khamauri Rogers, CB Christopher Keys, S Kobi Albert, QB Mike Wright, WR Freddie Roberson, TE Ryland Goede, TE Georgquarius Spivey, RB Keyvone Lee.

It’s a complete overhaul in the secondary with four additions who can compete for starting jobs. On offense, the addition of Mike Wright is a nice long-term piece, while Roberson is a nice player joining the receiver room. Two tight ends and a solid running back addition make this a quality transfer portal haul for a team with a new coach. 

The junior college route was also key for this team, adding receiver Jacoby Bellazar, defensive lineman Eric Taylor, and running back Jeffery Pitman, three top 50 JUCO players in this cycle.

Going into 2023

This is a year where Mississippi State will need to stabilize itself. Losing Leach changes everything about this program, even though Arnett has been on the staff for four years. The offense will look completely different, the persona of the team will be different. It’s going to be a season where the Bulldogs are still competitive, but ultimately there’s no way of knowing how good they can be.

Losing as much talent as they did from last year’s team hurts, but returning quarterback Will Rogers at the very least puts the offense in a position to be competent in a new system. I trust Arnett will have the defense ready again, but games could be much lower scoring than in 2022.

MSU will host Southeastern, Arizona, LSU, Alabama, Western Michigan, Kentucky, Southern Miss, and Ole Miss, with only four road games against South Carolina, Arkansas, Auburn, Texas A&M.  

Expectations

Losing as much talent as they did from last year’s team hurts, but returning quarterback Will Rogers at the very least puts the offense in a position to be competent in a new system. I trust Arnett will have the defense ready again, but games could be much lower scoring than in 2022.

For win-totals, I can see seven wins with this schedule. The four non-conference games are auto wins, then if we say they split the four road SEC games and just win one of Kentucky or Ole Miss at Home, that gets them to seven. 

Early LSU vs. Mississippi State game outlook

Last year, LSU’s defense was able to lock down and really bother Rogers and the State offense. It will take a while for the bulldogs to really get comfortable in their new offense and I expect LSU’s defense to come out firing on the road. The receivers will have to prove themselves against some experienced transfers in the back of LSU’s defense and the offensive line has its hands full with Maason Smith, Mekhi Wingo, and Harold Perkins.

On the other side of the ball, we get to see Jayden Daniels play a road game, where he struggled last year. Remember the Auburn, Arkansas, and Texas A&M games, where the offense was stuck in mud, this is an early opportunity to prove himself against one of the more impressive defensive minds in the SEC West.

Expectations will be for LSU to win this game on the road, regardless of what happens in the Florida State game to open the season. I don’t want to undersell Arnett and a resilient Mississippi State program, but if the Tigers want to compete to make the playoff, this is going to be a game where they’ll need to find a way to win on the road.