It didnt take long to realize that the Mississippi State offense was not exactly a well-oiled machine. Dropped passes, snapping problems and poor offensive line blocking were gleeming inadequacies that the Bulldog offense experienced during its first spring scrimmage.
“We got a long way to go,” said head coach Sylvester Croom. “We’re dropping way too many balls when the receivers are open and sometimes they’re open and the quarterback isn’t getting them the ball.”
Sophomore quarterbacks Aries Nelson and Omarr Conner rotated throughout the scrimmage. Nelson went eight for 23 including three interceptions and only passed for 40 yards. Conner threw for 77 yards and was six for 15 with one interception.
After the final snap, offensive coordinator Woody McCorvey explained the quarterback situation.
“Right now I want to see how each one of them handles the huddle,” McCorvey said. “During this week at practice I thought Aries had done a good job and that’s why we started him off. But he did not perform the way that I thought he would and that’s why we ended up giving Omarr some snaps.”
If there was a bright spot on the offense it was certainly the Bulldogs’ stacked running backs. Even with Nick Turner out of the picture MSU’s running game looks impressive. Senior Fred Reid led the runners with 72 yards. Upcoming freshman star from Athens, Ala., Jason Jude racked up 64 yards on 14 carries. Following him was another red shirt freshman Carlton Rice who carried the ball 19 times for 45 yards.
“I thought Carlton Rice did some good things running the football,” Croom said. “All of our running backs made a few plays. I think we have a little more depth at running back than I was originally thinking.”
Junior running back Jerious Norwood suffered a thumb poke in the eye early in the scrimmage and finished with only 20 yards.
The Dawg defense was the highlight of the day, but defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson says that his defense faced a very confused offense.
“We’re struggling with a new offense and a very complicated system, so I think a lot of the time it was more of them not making a play rather than us making plays, but I saw some good aggressive plays and I thought we controlled the line of scrimmage,” Johnson said.
One guy who controlled the line of scrimmage for the Bulldog defense was red shirt freshman Avery Hannibal. The 250-pound defensive tackle led the way with three sacks for a total loss of 15 yards.
The Dawg D deflected two passes, which were both intercepted, one by Willie Evans and the other by Corey Clark. Jeramie Johnson had an interception and senior Eric Fuller made a one-handed grab for his pick.
“I thought that our defense tackled well early, but at the end we got a little tired and allowed the offense to run the football pretty good against us,” Croom said. “But overall we were a heck of a lot better than yesterday. We’re making baby steps, but we got a long way to go.”