WATCH: Hard work paying dividends for Mississippi State receiver Jordan Mosley

Throughout spring practice and training camp, Mississippi State junior receiver Jordan Mosley was mentioned often by his teammates and coaches for his play on the practice fields. Two games into the season and the former Northwestern transfer has carried that momentum to Saturdays.

Entering Saturday’s matchup with Toledo, the Alabama native has collected nine catches for 162 yards this season. He stormed out of the gates with his first career 100-yard game against Eastern Kentucky in the season opener and produced a 65-yard touchdown reception on the third play of the season.

Following Tuesday’s practice, Mosley met with the media to discuss Toledo and his fast start:

Q: What have the preparations been like this week getting ready for Toledo?
Mosley: We’re just trusting ourselves. The whole thing about last week is we didn’t execute. We did a poor job of executing in the first half. Second half we put a lot of points up on the board, ran out of time. This week we got to start faster and execute better.

Q: Was that the main takeaway when y’all watched the film?
Mosley: 100 percent. There was nothing they did that stopped us. We shot ourselves in the foot, offensively, a lot. We just got to clean up more details and I think we will be fine.

Q: What was the talk at halftime after falling behind like that?
Mosley: We had the leaders of the team to help come in there and change the energy. We were basically saying, offensive-wise, they scored 20-something in the first (half) so why can’t we? There’s another half to go in the football game. We weren’t going to let that discourage us or anything. We came out, kept being resilient and keep pushing.

Q: What have you seen from Toledo’s defense on film?
Mosley: They’ve got great safeties in the box. Smart guys and they got a lot of older, veteran defensive players, six years, seven years. They’ve been around and seen a lot of football. You play for a long time and you pretty much seen everything you can see in this game. Knowing that they’ve seen it and seen pretty much everything, they are going to be ready to go.

Q: How is it having Kelly Akharaiyi back out there?
Mosley: It’s good having my brother. I feel like as a core, if you miss one, I’m not gonna say it set us back. But I feel like we’re always better when we have everyone. Having him back gives us more fuel to the fire and you expect a lot more deep balls.

Q: How rewarding has this start been for you?
Mosley: I try not to think about that right now. Just trying to continue to move forward, bring guys along with me. If you make plays consistently the numbers are going to go up. You got to do your part and make plays.

Q: As an older guy, what do you say to freshman Mario Craver about bouncing back from that offensive pass interference?
Mosley: I’m not one to talk about calls and refs because I don’t want to do their job. But honestly, I felt like Mario did everything right and that was a bs call. Sorry for my language. He did that exact same thing in the first game. If we are at home they probably wouldn’t call it but that’s home-field advantage.

Q: How beneficial is it to get 1 on 1 matchups in this offense with several weapons at receiver?
Mosley: If you ask every one of the receivers in the room, 1 on 1 is disrespect. I feel like everyone feels like they can beat anyone 1 on 1 and I feel exactly the same. I feel there is nobody that can stay in there with us besides ourselves. We just got to play for each other.

Q: How high is your confidence this season being able to carry momentum from training camp to the season?
Mosley: I just think the confidence comes from the work you put in. I put in a lot of work so it is rewarding just seeing the work pay off. It’s nothing more to it. The input that you put in, you’re always going to get the output. As long as you put in a lot of work, the results will come and it’s just a matter of time.

Q: How has Blake Shapen been in the huddle as a leader?
Mosley: He’s a dog, no matter what. I sat by him on the plane on the whole ride home. Me or him couldn’t go to sleep. We pretty much stayed up the whole plane ride back to Mississippi. He’s a guy that is very hard on himself and wants to be perfect. That’s how he plays the game. He doesn’t like to make mistakes. But when he does, he is the first person to go pick everyone up and tell us to get our stuff together, get back on the field and be ready to go.