Through four games the Mississippi State football team has both found its strength and returned to its roots. The emergence of the defensive line has been perhaps the biggest cause for hope thus far in the Dan Mullen era.
After a horrid performance in the SEC opener against Auburn where the Bulldogs allowed 390 rush yards, the front seven turned things around and shut down the rushing attack of two run-first conference foes in Vanderbilt and LSU. Head coach Dan Mullen said he takes the blame for the performance against Auburn and credits both the players and the coaching staff for the quick turnaround.
“We weren’t very aggressive in the Auburn game and it showed,” he said. “We didn’t put our players in good position to make plays. I think we’ve been a little more aggressive schematically and our guys have really bought into what we’ve tried to do, what we’ve tried to preach, and make sure that doesn’t happen to us again.”
MSU currently ranks eighth in the SEC in rush defense, allowing an average of 128.8 yards per game. Take away the Auburn game, however, and in three games MSU has allowed opponents to rush for only 41.6 yards per game, which would place them first in the conference, ahead of Alabama at 47.2 yards per game allowed.
Senior linebacker Jamar Chaney, the team’s second leading tackler with 24 stops, said the improvement is important to him on a personal level.
“It means a lot just because of how many yards Auburn put on us,” he said. “I mean, almost 400 yards rushing on the ground against us, you can’t win like that. To go out there against Vanderbilt and LSU and to hold both of those guys to like 30 yards, it feels good. Of course, it felt better against Vanderbilt because we came away with the win.”
Chaney said he believes the improvement was due to smarter play by the defense as a whole.
“On defense you kind of try to do someone else’s job instead of doing your own job and then something else breaks down,” he said. “If everybody just does their own job and runs to the ball then everything else takes care of its self.”
While Mullen takes the blame for the disappointing performance against Auburn, Chaney said the players should be held responsible.
“[The] coaching staff has been doing a good job all along. I always believe that it’s not the coaches that are on the field, it’s us out on the field. It’s the player’s responsibility once we go on the field.”
In 2008 MSU finished second-to-last in the conference in rush defense allowing 150.9 yards per game. Senior defensive lineman Kyle Love said it was a tough hit for the team last year when Chaney went down for the season with an injury, and he said having Chaney back is a huge reason the Bulldog rush defense is so improved.
“A lot of guys did look down last year when he got hurt, because he was our leader on defense and losing him was a big key because someone else had to step up in his shoes,” he said. “It’s big shoes to fill. Now that he’s back we’ll be all right. He can make a big difference. We’ll have our leader back in the middle.”
Love also said he believes the improved play on the line leads to the entire defensive unit becoming more powerful.
“It’s a great benefit because we have guys like [JUCO transfer] Pernell McPhee come in, and we didn’t have that rush off the edge like we do this year with him. We had the guys on the inside that was getting pushed, but we didn’t have the guys on the outside to collapse the pocket. Now, we have the rush to speed it up and help the secondary so they won’t have to cover as long.”
Mullen said he is impressed with the play of the defensive line so far, and said they will have to keep playing hard if the Bulldogs want to win more games.
“They’re playing with some confidence and we’ve got to continue to do that and continue to stop the run if we want to be successful,” he said.