You know what? It is OK to lose to Alabama, a team many consider to be the best in the country. 31-3 is the biggest margin of loss this season for the Bulldog, but even in the fourth quarter, it looked like Mississippi State might still have a chance against a team stacked – and I mean stacked – with players that will be making a living in the NFL.
This summer, there were few who knew anything about college football who thought MSU was going to have a winning season with such a brutal schedule. The majority of analysts would not have even gone so far as to say we would have still been in the game in the fourth quarter against teams like Florida, LSU and Houston. Yet, here we are in mid-November, still in contention for a bowl game. Yes, it’s OK to lose to Alabama.
Bama running back Mark Ingram is considered the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy. After all, he did rack up 151 yards and two touchdowns against our Dawgs. But, remove one run from late in the fourth quarter, and Ingram drops to only 81 yards – Dixon’s exact rushing total Saturday. Over the course of the game, the Bulldogs did a fair job keeping Ingram in check.
Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy seemed like he was having his way with the MSU secondary, as he threw for 192 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions. However, all McElroy did was loft the ball into the air on three occasions when Dawg defensive backs apparently did not notice a Tide player streaking toward the end zone. Take away those three passes, and McElroy only threw for 57 yards and zero touchdowns.
MSU’s secondary is young and will be susceptible to giving up big plays, but this is a different unit since Johnthan Banks, Corey Broomfield and Maurice Langston were inserted into the lineup. The height of the woes in the secondary came after giving up 434 yards to Houston, but in the last three games, the Bulldogs are allowing opponents an average of 146 yards through the air. To put that in perspective, the Florida Gators allow 139.6 yards per game – tops in the conference.
Over the course of the season, I’ve had multiple players and coaches tell me the key to Dan Mullen’s spread offense is getting the ball in the hands of the playmakers. Dixon, of course, is option No. 1 for MSU as he had 28 touches against the Tide, accordingly. However, Chad Bumphis and Leon Berry are the playmakers. Against one of the nation’s top rush defenses in the Crimson Tide, and after a bye-week, one would think the Bulldogs would find ways to get the team’s most electric players touches, but it did not happen. Granted, both Bumphis and Berry had long kickoff returns which pseudo-sparked the MSU offense, but Bumphis was the only one between them who touched the ball on offense – twice in 57 plays. I’m aware the Bulldogs have struggled mightily in the passing game, but we’ve seen Mullen do some pretty unorthodox things to put these players in a position to change the game. Does anybody remember the first play of the season? It was a reverse to Bumphis, who then threw the ball as far as he could downfield.
This offense is lightyears ahead of where it was under Croom, but when Mullen said, “This is gonna be exciting,” I believed him. Saturday’s offense was not.
The play calling may not have been exciting, but the atmosphere certainly was. The — um, apparent – record-breaking crowd of 58,103 was already electric before the game started. But when the Bulldogs left pregame warm-ups in maroon jerseys and returned to the field wearing black, Davis-Wade went nuts. I’m not one of those purists who think black jerseys are an abomination. Part of the excitement on the player’s part, it turns out, was because the jerseys were as much a surprise to them as they were to those of us watching. As a Starkville native, I’ve been through way too many years of bad teams and apathetic fans. To see the crowd so excited for a game most people realistically did not even think we would win was borderline inspiring. Mullen has preached exciting football on the field since day one, but the psychological change he has brought to this program is, at this early stage, far more important than X’s and O’s.