Down two starting wide receivers, with a third limited due to injuries after having lost another in the spring, No. 16 Mississippi State University (7-3, 3-3 SEC) had to find someone to step up and fill the void, and everyone did so.
This football season, injuries have continued to hit the receivers, with Gabe Myles continuing to bounce on and off the field after MSU already lost a projected starter in Malik Dear before the season. Then a leader in catches, Donald Gray, went down against Texas A&M University. Next was a leader in receiving yards Keith Mixon who has missed two games and was limited against the University of Alabama.
Receiver Deddrick Thomas said it does not put more pressure on anyone else because the players came to MSU to play.
“This is what you came here for,” Thomas said. “This is why you get recruited, this is why you go through that whole process.”
Despite it all, quarterback Nick Fitzgerald still threw the second most yards he has this season against an SEC opponent on Saturday, in the 24-31 loss to Alabama. How did it happen with so many injuries among the usual playmakers?
Simple, instead of one dominant receiver stepping up and taking over the game, Fitzgerald, a junior from Richmond Hill, Georgia, spread the ball around, and everyone stepped up. He completed his first 10 passes on Saturday to different players.
“Guys made some really great catches, beating man coverage and beating zone (coverage),” Fitzgerald said. “It was not exactly the goal to spread it around, but whoever was open was open.”
Head coach Dan Mullen complimented the receivers work ethic and them stepping up. Especially for their “Coach, give me the opportunity, I’ll find a way to make a play,” attitude.
“There are a lot of teams out there like the team we played, they were looking and basically just throwing it to one guy, saying, ‘We’ve got the one guy; we’re going to throw it to him and scheme it up to get to that guy,’” Mullen said. “That’s not how we’ve been. We’re going to distribute and take what the defense gives us. The benefit of doing that is to be able to, when you have the massive amounts of injuries the way we’ve had at receiver, still be confident out there that the next guy up will go make the play.”
In the end, no one caught the ball more than two times, so instead of one receiver having to take a massive step up, it was everyone taking a little bit of the load. Thomas, a sophomore from Memphis, Tennessee, said it showed Fitzgerald’s trust in everyone from the receiver group.
“It starts with trust,” Thomas said. “So for him to have trust with us and deliver the ball to each and every receiver is great.”
While having success through the air, MSU is still a run-first football team. MSU runs the spread and often tries to get Fitzgerald or a running back outside, but the only way for those plays to work is for receivers to block well.
Receivers are generally known as flashy players who do not want to get their hands dirty with things like blocking, but at MSU, the receivers take pride in getting down field and making blocks.
“If you can’t block, you can’t play,” Thomas said. “If you can’t protect your brothers, running back, quarterbacks, whoever has the ball, how can trust you to run to a middle route.”
The receivers will have to step up once again as MSU travels on the road this weekend to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to take on the University of Arkansas (4-6, 1-5 SEC). Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. and CBS will broadcast the game.
“For the most part this season, I think we’ve improved from one week to the next. That challenge is still ahead of us,” Mullen said. “Obviously going on the road against an excellent team, we’re going to have to do that and improve this week off last week’s performance.”