State defense working to shore up defensive issues
It’s a bit of a different world in Starkville this year as Mississippi State is in the middle of a rebuild on the defensive side of the ball.
There have been transitions that haven’t gone well for State on offense. The Bulldogs have had experiments at head coach and offensive coordinator that didn’t work out, but MSU has always seemed to have a physical and talented front seven most years.
This season, that mindset has already been put to the test. In ball games against Eastern Kentucky and Arizona State, defending the run has been a challenge. It wasn’t as much as an issue for the Bulldogs against the Colonels for four quarters, but State couldn’t stop the Sun Devils last Saturday night on the way to surrendering well over 300 yards on the ground along with a rusher of over 250 yards.
The culprit for coach Jeff Lebby was the inability to tackle. Lebby said there were schematic things that the Bulldogs should have done better, but the players missed 25 tackles and gave up a boatload of yards after contact.
“I think that was the frustrating part for our guys. When they watched the tape there were plenty of times where we were in position and we got to get the guy on the ground,” Lebby said. “On the first drive, 2nd and 10 and the quarterback makes an unbelievable play. We had him dead to rights four yards deep in the backfield and not able to make the play.”
Bulldogs dealing with depth issues in the middle
With 5.0 yards per rush already on the board through two ball games, State is scrambling to find ways to shore up the defensive issues. For one, the Bulldogs aren’t healthy or deep on their roster.
Sophomore DT Kalvin Dinkins and junior DE Deonte Anderson both missed last week with injuries. On top of those two being out, the Bulldogs lost a good depth piece in the middle with Eric Taylor as Lebby said he’s no longer with the team.
Young and inexperienced linemen like Trevion Williams and Kai McLendon are playing a bigger role and they’re mixing in with new faces from the transfer portal like Sulaiman Kpaka and Kedrick Bingley-Jones. No matter the youth or inexperience, Williams said they have to execute at a much higher level.
“We’ve just got to be better tacklers and get off of our blocks better. It was basically just tackling and fundamentals that we’ve got to work on,” Williams said. “We’ve watched it and seen what we did wrong and we’re trying to put it behind us and make sure we’re doing the best thing this game.”
The good news for Lebby’s crew is he saw a group that came in on Monday ready to work.
The Bulldogs don’t have a schedule conducive to slowly bringing the players along this year. This week’s game against a strong Group of 5 opponent like Toledo begins a brutal stretch of games for State that includes Florida at home next week followed by road trips to Texas and Georgia.
State players had no choice but to bring the hard hat with them and get a fresh start this week. Saturday night’s showdown with the Rockets will test them on whether or not they’re ready to turn over a new leaf and get back to the grind.
“It’s been pretty good, been pretty intense,” Williams said of the week of practice. “Guys are working on things that we messed up on the previous game so we can have our best foot forward.
“We had to flip mindsets. We had to come in with the right mindset knowing what we came out with in the first half (vs. Arizona State), we can’t have that this week.”
