WATCH: Zach Arnett press conference - Kentucky game week

On Monday afternoon, Mississippi State head coach Zach Arnett held his weekly press conference at Davis Wade Stadium. Arnett recapped the loss at Auburn and previewed Saturday’s home matchup with Kentucky among other topics:

Opening Statement
Arnett: Great opportunity to play in front of our home crowd this weekend. We’ve had tremendous environments here and expect another great crowd here as we honor the 1998 SEC Western Division championship team. We have one of them working our building in Rod Gibson. I believe Coach Jackie Sherrill will be here. He has been extremely kind to me, offered many words of wisdom and advice to me about being the head coach at Mississippi State. Excited to see him back here and that team get honored. We’ll wear special throwback uniforms. We have a tremendous opponent coming in this weekend (with) Kentucky.

They are coming off a stretch where they have played as good a three-game stretch as any team in the country (facing) No. 1, No. 14 and No. 19. I cannot say enough about Coach (Mark) Stoops and what he has accomplished there. I have admiration for their program. They know exactly who they are, physical, incredibly fundamentally sound. Running back (Ray Davis), who leads the league in rushing. He is as electric a back as I’ve seen all year. As explosive a runner as we have faced to this point. The quarterback is coming off a tremendous game, Leary, we faced him when he was at North Carolina State. He has a big arm, can make all the throws, and he has really talented guys on the outside. Every year they are in the upper echelon of the league defensively. Should be a great match up and hopefully a great environment here.

Q: Looking back on the Auburn loss, what disappointed you the most?
Arnett: Both sides of the ball. Defensively, disappointed with the execution in the first half. Got shredded pretty good, 300 yards in the first half. Only got off the field one drive. Special teams pinned them down there inside the 15, and we got a three and out there. We let the game get away from us. By the time we started playing pretty good, the game was too far out of hand and time becomes your biggest enemy. Offensively, without your starting quarterback and starting running back, points will be tougher to come by. But either way when you get inside the red zone, you need to come away with touchdowns. It’s very difficult to win kicking field goals. It takes a special defensive performance, and we were not playing that well.

Q: Any chance we see quarterback Chris Parson play this year?
Arnett: Yeah sure, I think there’s a chance.

Q: With the 1998 team being honored this weekend, any thoughts of using that as motivation for your team?
Arnett: We may. With Rod Gibson in the building every day, probably give him the opportunity to talk about that team. First and foremost, we have to make sure we’re preparing the team for what is needed to play our best this weekend. You would hope your guys want to play their best with those greats coming back, one of the best teams in school history.

Q: In the series with Kentucky, the home team usually ends up winning. What makes it so difficult for the road team in this series?
Arnett: Both places have great environments, great support from the fan bases. It’s always tougher to play on the road. You have to deal with crowd noise and distractions, and everything that comes with traveling. The game of football, though, comes down to execution, putting together a full game for 60 minutes. Hopefully, we’re prepared to do that.

Q: Zavion Thomas had an impressive game against Auburn. Your thoughts on his performance?
Arnett: He was the most explosive player on our team. He had over 100 yards receiving, I think 112 yards. First play of the game was a tremendous catch. I thought we had some creative ways of getting him the football. Not everyone was drop back pass or play action. There were some from unique alignments. Kentucky does a tremendous job of finding unique formations, ways to get their guys the ball. With the clock changes, you don’t get as many snaps…you want to maximize every single one of them and get the ball in the most explosive player’s hands. It’s no surprise when you see the way he returns punts. We’ll continue to find ways to get him touches.

Q: There was a report that Auburn was stealing your offensive signs. Any insight there?
Arnett: Which side? Offense? Well, n the first half, we had 122 yards of total offense, 4.9 yards per play. The second half we had 223 yards, 5.9 yards per play. 75 rush yards in the first half, 108 in the second. You need to come to your own conclusions from that report. I let the facts speak for themselves.

Q: What does the interlocking MSU mean to you for this weekend’s throwback uniforms?
Arnett: It’s special to me just to be the coach of this university. I’ve had the opportunity to be around Coach Sherrill a couple of times, sit and listen to him about what it’s like to coach here, and try to soak up any advice I can get. I hope we play to our maximum ability. If the uniform we’re in contributes to that, let’s wear that uniform every game. I probably don’t think that existentially or philosophically to go down that worm hole to make it something more than it is. It’s really just the most important game we play this week because it’s the only one we play this week. We need to do everything we can to control what we can control and show up prepared as best as possible.

Q: When it comes to this team finding an identity, do you think they have one and where have you come up short in that aspect?
Arnett: You want to win every game, obviously. Depending upon injuries, those will always affect what you can do schematically. Every team is dealing with that. You want your identity to be how hard you play, how physical you play the game, how fundamentally sound with proper technique you play. I believe we compete and play hard for the most part. I think we can play harder. My job as a coach is to teach them proper fundamentals, techniques, employ the right scheme, but it’s also to push the right buttons to be emotionally ready. The buck stops here. I’m responsible for everything. There’s no greater critic of myself or our program than myself. We’ve got 4 more games in front of us. If we prepare, compete, and give them a good game plan, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win every single one of those games.