Sunday Morning QB- we lost edition

[Coach34]

1. Heard all week about how tough it is to play in T-Town and how awesome Bammer is there. And we walk out there and poo poo in our pants so we can prove everybody right- starting the Head Coach and working our way down. Even Phil Silva had a bad day

2. Bama came out and was who they are from the opening whistle until the final whistle. We came out, tried to be cute and something we arent. And that is why we dug ourselves such a deep hole. JRob with only 4 first half carries is inexcusable. Put another way- Holloway had nearly as many touches in the 1st half as JRob. OC's have been fired over shit like that. It's ridiculous. It's stupid. It's called P-A-N-I-C. We lost because we dug ourselves such a big hole- not running JRob was the shovel.

3. Why cant we punt suddenly? 5 punts for a 34.4 average. You cant shank like that in a big game and give Bama better field position. One of the things that hurt us was lack of field position. Their punter went for 45.6 for the game. Totally outplayed us there and it was a factor. At least Sobeisk came to play. He was 2/2 and is now 8/9 on the season.

4. We outrushed and outpassed Bammer by almost 100 yards. Put the most yards on them any team has all year. We held them to 335 yards- that's Croom-level numbers in today's football. So what went wrong? Let's examine the things that stood out to me.

A) Bama downing the punt on the 5- we come out and throw a pass that gets broken up- then get stuffed for a safety. Ross came in motion late to disrupt our timing and JRob's vision- but he also cant fly wide when that happens. Bama made a good play and we are down 2. How about a quick pass to Jameon or something there? Just wasnt a well thought out series imo.

B) Down 5-0 in 2nd- we finally get a drive going. We get to Bammer's 40 and then fall apart- it ends with a pick on Dakota on a pass over the middle at the Bama 21. JRob had 1 carry on that drive- so by total to that point: State 4 offensive drives- JRob- 2 ****ing carries.

C) We continue to lose the punting battle- and Bama gets the ball on their own 39 in the mid-2nd Q. So what do we do? We put the 1B defense in. The entire 1B defense against the team some people think is the best in the country on their field. 1st play against 1B? a 35 yard pass to the 2nd RB out of the backfield (good play design by Kiffin) down to the State 26 to put us in the damn hole. You cant do that shit against a top 5 team. Guys need some rest- but not the whole damn unit. Huge coaching mistake there by our staff. Broke the game open

D) After another State possession that goes 3 and out in which JRob didnt touch the ball- Bama gets great field position again around midfield. 1st play they move Cooper inside and throw deep on our Safety complete to our 1 yard line. That cant happen. It ****ing cant. It wasnt some new wrinkle. It wasnt anything spectacular- it's basic football. Shit, it's been what I have been clamoring for us to do with Bear more. That took the 12-0 game to 19-0 and basically put us away right there. Back to back critical coaching mistakes on defense possessions. That's why teams lose big games.

E) We respond with a good drive before half- even though JRob only got 1 carry on that drive for 7 yards. Inside the Bama 1 and absolutely need a TD- we get one there and we are still in it. We get stupid and go long count with 95K screaming- Malone flinches. 5 yard penalty was a killer. Mullen calls a good play on 1st down and gets MoJo open- but Dakota missed him badly in the end zone. Of course we dont run on 2nd to give us a chance to make it 3rd and short- end up with a FG. Had to have 7 points and we didnt get it. You cant go long count there with 95K screaming on the road. Huge mistake that basically ended our chances.

End of 1st half- JRob 4 rushes. FOUR. Fo. Cuatro. You have to be "who you are" offensively no matter who the opponent. Adding a formation or a wrinkle here and there is fine- but you have to you. We werent us the 1st half. Terrible job by Mullen with the offense in the 1st half. Terrible. Out-coached, out-played, out-punted, out-everything in the 1st half.

5. 1st drive of the 2nd half????? JRob 3 carries 13 yards...1 catch 12 yards. We kick another FG. Amazing how we finally, FINALLY start using JRob and we go down and get more points. This shit aint that hard. You have to run JRob to make the LB'ers hold in the middle to play run. If the LB'ers a run-focused- it creates more room to hit MoJo and others in the middle of the field. We didnt do anything in the 1st half to make the LB'ers run-focused to help create passing lanes. Piss poor offensive coaching in the 1st half. No excuses for that.

6. 2nd drive of the 2nd? No JRob touches- 3 plays and punt. See a pattern here?

7. 3rd drive of the 2nd ends pick a pick in the end zone. Great job on the drive but we dont finish. 2nd turnover of the game- but even worse- 3 trips into the red zone with only 6 points.

8. All those mistakes to that point- and it's still a 19-13 game with 14 minutes left in the game. And then Alabama shows why they are Alabama. They put together the winning drive when they had to:

15 plays/76 yards
3rd and 5 from the 40- Sims pass to Yeldon for 8 yards
3rd and 8 from the 50- Sims runs for 10 yards
3rd and 10 from the State 40- Sims runs for 11 yards

At crunch time- their QB made the plays to win the game. Ours didnt. You can factor in coaching mistakes and all kinds of other things without a doubt- but at the very core of things- Sims came thru in big situations to get the job done and didnt make mistakes. We didnt come thru when we needed it badly and turned the ball over 3 times- all from Bama's 21 yard line and in.

To be the man, you have to beat the man. And Bama is still the man. They earned it.


Moving forward- all we can control is us. We have to beat Vandy and win the Egg Bowl. We do that- and we might get a shot at the playoff. If we dont get a shot in the playoff, an 11-1 season with an awesome bowl is a great season. Hell, 10-2 would still be a very good season- but a loss in the EB at this point would leave most of us sour all offseason. At least I will be. No way our football team should lose to that bunch. We are a better team. We only lost by 5 in T-Town with 3 turnovers- think about that. We are a good football team. We just have to get back to being who we are in each game moving forward.

In Mullen We Trust (but pissed off at),

C34

[GTHOM]

Agree with all. Good stuff

[Political Hack]

we spotted them 5 points, shot ourselves in the foot on 2 RZ attempts (at least 6 points), and gave them a short field multiple times... to lose by 5.

[ShotgunDawg]

Good stuff

[basedog]

I liked how Mullen said it was on him for poor play calling. At least he is man enough to know and he didn't throw his players under the bus! You never want to lose and think you can learn from your mistakes but this is the case and we should be better down the road!

[msstate7]

This was a learning experience for mullen. He's still a young coach. In fact, the youngest sec coach. He'll be a better coach bc of yesterday imo

[GTHOM]

we spotted them 5 points, shot ourselves in the foot on 2 RZ attempts (at least 6 points), and gave them a short field multiple times... to lose by 5.

No doubt. I hope the team realizes this. JRob was already talking about it. We have a veteran team. We shouldnt lose again

[HoopsDawg]

Good post, you hit on almost everything. I was going to comment on the long snap count to end the first half. Really dumb.

2 things you didn't say. One of those 3 and outs in the 2nd half was the result of a really critical drop by Jameon.

Also, the 3rd and 10 run by Sims, Preston Smith totally lost his containment. I'm not sure what he was doing. Those 2 guys are 2 of our best players and they have had great careers and you would expect them to make those plays.

Cooper's deep catch over the middle was against our 2 safteties. That position has been an issue all year.

[Coach34]

Good post, you hit on almost everything. I was going to comment on the long snap count to end the first half. Really dumb.

2 things you didn't say. One of those 3 and outs in the 2nd half was the result of a really critical drop by Jameon.

Also, the 3rd and 10 run by Sims, Preston Smith totally lost his containment. I'm not sure what he was doing. Those 2 guys are 2 of our best players and they have had great careers and you would expect them to make those plays.

Cooper's deep catch over the middle was against our 2 safteties. That position has been an issue all year.

There should have been a better plan in place when Cooper was inserted into the Slot. I mean damn, that's why you do it- to get him matched against a safety- we didnt plan very well for that

[cheewgumm]

I went into that game wondering How we'd cover Cooper. I didn't realize the answer was 1 on 1 with a safety. That play blew mind. I wonder.... If Jerry Rice in his prime had lined up in the slot would we cover him with one of our safeties?

[GTHOM]

I dont understand why we didnt see Will Redmond follow cooper around all night, all that said he still only had 88 yards. thats a good job against somebody of his caliber. we lost this game they didnt beat us. we will handle our business and let the chips fall where they may

[Dawgface]

This was a learning experience for mullen. He's still a young coach. In fact, the youngest sec coach. He'll be a better coach bc of yesterday imo

Mullen has been coaching long enough as OC and as a HC to not be making these mistakes. Not bashing him, glad he is our coach and hope he stays for a long time. But not sure he will ever eliminate all the head scratching decisions he makes.

[NCDawg]

Good post, you hit on almost everything. I was going to comment on the long snap count to end the first half. Really dumb.

2 things you didn't say. One of those 3 and outs in the 2nd half was the result of a really critical drop by Jameon.

Also, the 3rd and 10 run by Sims, Preston Smith totally lost his containment. I'm not sure what he was doing. Those 2 guys are 2 of our best players and they have had great careers and you would expect them to make those plays.

Cooper's deep catch over the middle was against our 2 safteties. That position has been an issue all year.

If we could have stopped just one of those 3rd down conversions, we would have had a good chance to win the game. Should not have let Sims get outside on us like that.

[msstate7]

Mullen has been coaching long enough as OC and as a HC to not be making these mistakes. Not bashing him, glad he is our coach and hope he stays for a long time. But not sure he will ever eliminate all the head scratching decisions he makes.

Those were urban's teams. This was mullen's first essentially title (sec west) game. He choked. He won't next time (fingers crossed)

[HoopsDawg]

Those were urban's teams. This was mullen's first essentially title (sec west) game. He choked. He won't next time (fingers crossed)

We opened the game with 2 first downs. Then we called a screen pass. We haven't run a successful screen pass in 6 years.

[Coach34]

And the screen was all jumbled up- looked awful

[Political Hack]

We opened the game with 2 first downs. Then we called a screen pass. We haven't run a successful screen pass in 6 years.

that's woefully incorrect. we ran a HUGE slip screen against Arkansas two weeks ago. We also ran several to Perk against Ole miss one year and against Michigan I believe. It's always in the playbook and they practice it regularly.

[CadaverDawg]

Coach, you nailed it. And you know I would pick it apart if I could. Our sphincters tightened up and it showed. Mullen's gameplan offensively was a disaster. The lack of touches by JRob, and the complete abandonment of the run game (except for some terrible QB sweep calls) was totally unacceptable. But then again, even when he actually did call good plays, our players didn't step up and make the plays. The missed TD pass by Dak, the drop by Jameon, the safety, and the pick in the end zone, are all plays that just can't happen if you want to win a big game.

Think about this....if JRob doesn't get the safety, and we simply throw the ball away on the pick in the endzone and get a FG, that game is tied and going to OT. I know that's a lot of "what ifs", but that's just an example of how a few minor bonehead decisions can cost you a National Championship potentially.

Great post, and hopefully we can take care of business these last 2 weeks and sneak into the playoffs. I would love another shot at those guys. They were far from scary, and I think we beat them on any field outside of Tuscaloosa.

[Smitty]

Think about this....if JRob doesn't get the safety, and we simply throw the ball away on the pick in the endzone and get a FG, that game is tied and going to OT.

If we don't get the safety and punch it in from 1st and goal on the 1 we win

[HoopsDawg]

that's woefully incorrect. we ran a HUGE slip screen against Arkansas two weeks ago. We also ran several to Perk against Ole miss one year and against Michigan I believe. It's always in the playbook and they practice it regularly.

Excuse me, we have had 1 or 2 good RB screens in 6 years. What was I thinking.**

[HoopsDawg]

If we don't get the safety and punch it in from 1st and goal on the 1 we win

I'll take it one step further, if we don't go long snap count causing Malone to jump, we win.

[GTHOM]

If we don't get the safety and punch it in from 1st and goal on the 1 we win

Absolutely right

[GreenheadDawg]

The entire team, players and coaches, have a lot to learn from yesterday when it comes to playing on the big stage. None of the players have ever been there before. I just hope can clear his mind and figure out what's going wrong. He's made some really poor decisions the past few weeks. He's looked uncomfortable and confused. The group I was with yesterday was bitching about him being the reason we lost yesterday, while that may be true, he's the biggest reason that we are 9-1 right now

[Political Hack]

Excuse me, we have had 1 or 2 good RB screens in 6 years. What was I thinking.**

had more than that in one egg bowl. wouldn't be shocked to see us run it more down the stretch.

[GTHOM]

as bad as yesterday was we still played below our usual level and still only lost by 5 points to alabama on the road. we match up well with vandy and ole miss and i think we will win both.

[PendingTransaction]

Why was our offensive so messes up? My thoughts... Hevesy calls a lot of our offense. As in years pass, he tries stuff to mask poor OL play. Last night he was afraid to run the ball.

[I seen it dawg]

Why was our offensive so messes up? My thoughts... Hevesy calls a lot of our offense. As in years pass, he tries stuff to mask poor OL play. Last night he was afraid to run the ball.

Huh? No he doesn't. He doesn't "call" anything. He game plans and is in Dans ear on the headset but he doesn't call anything.

[PendingTransaction]

Yes he does. Always have.

[Political Hack]

nm

[I seen it dawg]

Yes he does. Always have.

So Hvesy calls the plays?

[PendingTransaction]

So Hvesy calls the plays?

He calls a lot of them, at least that what a guy wearing one of the headsets says. It could be a lie.

[I seen it dawg]

I imagine it's a lot more of input which is common. I would imagine he and Gonzalez have input into Dan headset. Dan makes the call.

[defiantdog]

He calls a lot of them, at least that what a guy wearing one of the headsets says. It could be a lie.

Hevesy doesn't call any plays. He tells Mullen what he sees. And as far as a safety's covering in general..... they suck. Our best coverage over the middle was when Matt Wells broke up a long pass in the first half. Our safeties look lost in coverage. Cooper simply ran past Hughes on the first td. He didn't even try to bump him at the line.

[MabenMaroon]

Bottom line is all of the above mentioned miscues, blunders, whatever you want to call them are very fixable. The whole game was loaded with teachable moments, players and coaches alike. One thing, I take away from all of this is, that we are a program that is very, very close to being one of the elite programs in the nation. We do not lack for talent in any area. Just a play here or there was the difference in the final outcome and we had a multitude of mistakes, errors or blunders. Eliminate half or more of those fixable moments and we win the game going away. It is part of the process of learning how to win. We are getting so very close to completing that process and yesterday should go a long ways towards that.

[defiantdog]

I blame the loss on the uniforms.... should have been the 100 year unis

[Todd4State]

I blame the loss on the uniforms.... should have been the 100 year unis

I know you are being sarcastic, but I will say it was lazy as hell for our administration to not push Adidas for a road version. I'm pretty sure that Adidas could have made 80 sets of uniforms during the Industrial Age in the late 1800's much less now.

[War Machine Dawg]

I know you are being sarcastic, but I will say it was lazy as hell for our administration to not push Adidas for a road version. I'm pretty sure that Adidas could have made 80 sets of uniforms during the Industrial Age in the late 1800's much less now.

We don't/can't do that at Mississippi State.*****

[drunkernhelldawg]

Mullen has been coaching long enough as OC and as a HC to not be making these mistakes. Not bashing him, glad he is our coach and hope he stays for a long time. But not sure he will ever eliminate all the head scratching decisions he makes.

Alabama is so well coached and disciplined. They had about zero susceptibility to our endless attempts to try and fool them. They beat it by playing straight up football. It seemed like Mullen kept trying to find the play to break them out of that, turn the tone of the game back over to us. Maybe Mullen tried to accomplish this too quickly. My feeling is that we should have stopped making disguise such a high priority and instead try to beat them on their terms, play straight up and beat them on the play, player by player. Also, shouldn't have taken that shot after getting that big first down between the forties in the third quarter. Should have put some yardage into the next first down instead. But it ain't all on Mullen. Our line and d played between good and super, but our skill players made one mistake after another. Missed plays galore.

[I seen it dawg]

We should have run the damn ball with JRob early and been patient. Tried to do too much shit instead of hammering them. Simple.

[GTHOM]

We should have run the damn ball with JRob early and been patient. Tried to do too much shit instead of hammering them. Simple.

I agree Robinson needs the ball more. If we do what we do Dak and JRob will go off BIG TIME these last 2 games

[justwin]

agree, Mullen needs to learn to use his Big RBs much better @ MSU to become championship caliber. I still don't understand why we rested JRob last week to give him 12 freaking carries.

Had we given JRob 12+ more carries yesterday instead of Dak or passes, we win by 10......those add'l 12 carries would've trumped interceptions, dropped passes, bad punting..everything. Big RBs coupled with good passers beat Bama and we have 2 studs.

Mullen needs to realize that MSU is unlike UF, Utah, BG, in that he's always going to have a homegrown bellcow RB that his running QB should complement....not the other way around.

Plus, Dak really needs to work on pitching and giving on the various option plays as they're like short passes.

I can't tell you how much I hate the empty backfield set.

In Mullen we trust


1. Heard all week about how tough it is to play in T-Town and how awesome Bammer is there. And we walk out there and poo poo in our pants so we can prove everybody right- starting the Head Coach and working our way down. Even Phil Silva had a bad day

2. Bama came out and was who they are from the opening whistle until the final whistle. We came out, tried to be cute and something we arent. And that is why we dug ourselves such a deep hole. JRob with only 4 first half carries is inexcusable. Put another way- Holloway had nearly as many touches in the 1st half as JRob. OC's have been fired over shit like that. It's ridiculous. It's stupid. It's called P-A-N-I-C. We lost because we dug ourselves such a big hole- not running JRob was the shovel.

3. Why cant we punt suddenly? 5 punts for a 34.4 average. You cant shank like that in a big game and give Bama better field position. One of the things that hurt us was lack of field position. Their punter went for 45.6 for the game. Totally outplayed us there and it was a factor. At least Sobeisk came to play. He was 2/2 and is now 8/9 on the season.

4. We outrushed and outpassed Bammer by almost 100 yards. Put the most yards on them any team has all year. We held them to 335 yards- that's Croom-level numbers in today's football. So what went wrong? Let's examine the things that stood out to me.

A) Bama downing the punt on the 5- we come out and throw a pass that gets broken up- then get stuffed for a safety. Ross came in motion late to disrupt our timing and JRob's vision- but he also cant fly wide when that happens. Bama made a good play and we are down 2. How about a quick pass to Jameon or something there? Just wasnt a well thought out series imo.

B) Down 5-0 in 2nd- we finally get a drive going. We get to Bammer's 40 and then fall apart- it ends with a pick on Dakota on a pass over the middle at the Bama 21. JRob had 1 carry on that drive- so by total to that point: State 4 offensive drives- JRob- 2 ****ing carries.

C) We continue to lose the punting battle- and Bama gets the ball on their own 39 in the mid-2nd Q. So what do we do? We put the 1B defense in. The entire 1B defense against the team some people think is the best in the country on their field. 1st play against 1B? a 35 yard pass to the 2nd RB out of the backfield (good play design by Kiffin) down to the State 26 to put us in the damn hole. You cant do that shit against a top 5 team. Guys need some rest- but not the whole damn unit. Huge coaching mistake there by our staff. Broke the game open

D) After another State possession that goes 3 and out in which JRob didnt touch the ball- Bama gets great field position again around midfield. 1st play they move Cooper inside and throw deep on our Safety complete to our 1 yard line. That cant happen. It ****ing cant. It wasnt some new wrinkle. It wasnt anything spectacular- it's basic football. Shit, it's been what I have been clamoring for us to do with Bear more. That took the 12-0 game to 19-0 and basically put us away right there. Back to back critical coaching mistakes on defense possessions. That's why teams lose big games.

E) We respond with a good drive before half- even though JRob only got 1 carry on that drive for 7 yards. Inside the Bama 1 and absolutely need a TD- we get one there and we are still in it. We get stupid and go long count with 95K screaming- Malone flinches. 5 yard penalty was a killer. Mullen calls a good play on 1st down and gets MoJo open- but Dakota missed him badly in the end zone. Of course we dont run on 2nd to give us a chance to make it 3rd and short- end up with a FG. Had to have 7 points and we didnt get it. You cant go long count there with 95K screaming on the road. Huge mistake that basically ended our chances.

End of 1st half- JRob 4 rushes. FOUR. Fo. Cuatro. You have to be "who you are" offensively no matter who the opponent. Adding a formation or a wrinkle here and there is fine- but you have to you. We werent us the 1st half. Terrible job by Mullen with the offense in the 1st half. Terrible. Out-coached, out-played, out-punted, out-everything in the 1st half.

5. 1st drive of the 2nd half????? JRob 3 carries 13 yards...1 catch 12 yards. We kick another FG. Amazing how we finally, FINALLY start using JRob and we go down and get more points. This shit aint that hard. You have to run JRob to make the LB'ers hold in the middle to play run. If the LB'ers a run-focused- it creates more room to hit MoJo and others in the middle of the field. We didnt do anything in the 1st half to make the LB'ers run-focused to help create passing lanes. Piss poor offensive coaching in the 1st half. No excuses for that.

6. 2nd drive of the 2nd? No JRob touches- 3 plays and punt. See a pattern here?

7. 3rd drive of the 2nd ends pick a pick in the end zone. Great job on the drive but we dont finish. 2nd turnover of the game- but even worse- 3 trips into the red zone with only 6 points.

8. All those mistakes to that point- and it's still a 19-13 game with 14 minutes left in the game. And then Alabama shows why they are Alabama. They put together the winning drive when they had to:

15 plays/76 yards
3rd and 5 from the 40- Sims pass to Yeldon for 8 yards
3rd and 8 from the 50- Sims runs for 10 yards
3rd and 10 from the State 40- Sims runs for 11 yards

At crunch time- their QB made the plays to win the game. Ours didnt. You can factor in coaching mistakes and all kinds of other things without a doubt- but at the very core of things- Sims came thru in big situations to get the job done and didnt make mistakes. We didnt come thru when we needed it badly and turned the ball over 3 times- all from Bama's 21 yard line and in.

To be the man, you have to beat the man. And Bama is still the man. They earned it.


Moving forward- all we can control is us. We have to beat Vandy and win the Egg Bowl. We do that- and we might get a shot at the playoff. If we dont get a shot in the playoff, an 11-1 season with an awesome bowl is a great season. Hell, 10-2 would still be a very good season- but a loss in the EB at this point would leave most of us sour all offseason. At least I will be. No way our football team should lose to that bunch. We are a better team. We only lost by 5 in T-Town with 3 turnovers- think about that. We are a good football team. We just have to get back to being who we are in each game moving forward.

In Mullen We Trust (but pissed off at),

C34

[War Machine Dawg]

Monday bump

[Barking 13]

Bottom line is all of the above mentioned miscues, blunders, whatever you want to call them are very fixable. The whole game was loaded with teachable moments, players and coaches alike. One thing, I take away from all of this is, that we are a program that is very, very close to being one of the elite programs in the nation. We do not lack for talent in any area. Just a play here or there was the difference in the final outcome and we had a multitude of mistakes, errors or blunders. Eliminate half or more of those fixable moments and we win the game going away. It is part of the process of learning how to win. We are getting so very close to completing that process and yesterday should go a long ways towards that.

^^^ gets it...

[Barking 13]

There were a lot of play calls that were the right call and would have made good yardage, or more, and we just didn't execute.

[FlabLoser]

Our OL got whipped. Bama committed to clogging the middle and it stayed clogged. Shout our to our LT who was abused and spent half the game 3 yards behind the LOS, especially on run plays. Honorable mention to Dillon Day who was laying on the ground at lot of time while his man was blowing up a play.

The Elitedawg previews of this game talked about how our success would begin and end with handling their DL, especially the NG. Welp, that's how it went.

I've been critical of first half play calling. Maybe the coaches saw what how our OL was getting whipped and immediately changed the script away from what we expected to see. The 2nd half was better. I'm not sure what they fixed at halftime.

[msstate7]

We got beat at our own game. We usually dominate the redzone on offense and defense. They won the redzone sat

[Coach34]

After JRob's 1st carry for -5, he was 11 carries for 42 yards. That's not too bad. We didn't stay patient and RTGDF with our best RB- and it cost us dearly

[I seen it dawg]

Run. The. Muther. ****ing. Football. If we sty with our identity the first half we win the game. It's totally different. We would have made it onto an LSU type game which they can't beat us in.

[tcdog70]

It is pretty simple --players have to make plays. Catch the first down pass and we are at the 30 instead of at the one. Don't jump and we score a TD. Dak didn't make plays.Tubby dropped a pass.Punters looked like shit. If you want to win, when it is your time make the play.