The blueprint for beating MSU

[FlabLoser]

Something the Bama game and Ole Miss games had in common - sell out to clog the middle. Own the LOS between the tackles. Bama and OM put up a brick wall there and it pretty much took away our offense.

I don't know why we can't adjust to not being able to run between the tackles. But we can't or we don't.

Ole Miss's big plays ceratinly stand out. Despite a few REALLY big plays, they were inept. What hurt a lot worse was us not moving the football consistently.

In both games, or insistence to run into a brick wall in the middle of the field was our undoing. Playcalling? Perhaps.

We could stand to have a better OL. Our OL has been good. But if we want to be elite, we need an elite OL. We surely do not have an elite OL. We need to build better right there.

And Mullen needs an alternate plan of attack.

[Smitty]

Stop the run and make Dak make split second decisions.. Easy. Doesn't help when Mullen is calling 5 step drop's like the damn Tyler Russell special offense.

[ShotgunDawg]

Agree, if Mullen can't run up the gut, our offense goes to crap.

I think this where Mullen has to grow has a head coach. I think he is stubborn to his offense since he won 2 national titles with it. His offense is outstanding and he is a great coach, until his bread and butter isn't working and he has to become creative. For whatever reason, against top teams, he's scared to throw the kitchen sink at them.

Freeze had nothing to lose and through the kitchen sink at us on offense today. His high school coaching may have helped him today, since it prepared him to have to be creative with injuries and talent issues.

Mullen has to learn to open the offense when things aren't going right in the running game. He struggles to do this and it's hurts.

[Coach 57]

The way to stop a Dan Mullen coached MSU team.....work on the 3-3-5 and implement it in your defensive philosophy. But to use it you better have some good tackling safeties, a knifing NT and tackle well in space. That's what Bama did, it's what UM did.

[GTHOM]

Mullen has tamed Dak. Period. Ever since the Kentucky game we have ran read option with Dak, leave the last man on the edge unblocked (usually the DE) and he crashes, Dak gives it anyway. Its been all give 100 percent of the time. They are obviously scared of him getting him hurt. Your taking the best play in our offense and turning it into a dive basically. Its terrible. Also, when Dak drops back to throw they have told him to sit in the pocket and not run. Watch Blake Sims and Nick Marshall. They scramble, Dak has done it, then all of a sudden he stopped. He started diving and sliding. Our coaching staff has taken one of the best offensive players and leaders in the country and confined him to the pocket and straight ahead runs when they are loading the box. The 4th and 3 call today is a prime example. And thats just on our offensive coaches...

[Liverpooldawg]

If you control the line of scrimmage between the tackles you will win 95% or more of your games, no matter who you are and who you are playing. The only way you don't is turnovers. It's fundamental football and we did it in all but two games this year. You know the two. It ain't no revelation. The bigger the game and the better the two teams playing the more important it is. It's the goal of all offenseses and defenses, even pass happy spreads.

[NCDawg]

Prescott stated that he was trying to stay in the pocket more, rather than just taking off when he was filmed on SECN "Film Room". I agree staying in the pocket too much has hurt his production.

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

Freeze had nothing to lose and through the kitchen sink at us on offense today. His high school coaching may have helped him today, since it prepared him to have to be creative with injuries and talent issues.


This may literally be the dumbest thing I have ever read. His HIGH SCHOOL coaching taught him how to beat us? He coached high school like 7 years ago. Is Dan not capable of high school level coaching? Hell, even with the loss I'm pretty happy with our coach.

I get that emotions are high. Today sucked. Losing with so much on the line sucked. It hurt like hell. It was a damn good year though.

edited to account for drunkenness at the time of original post

[FlabLoser]

Prescott stated that he was trying to stay in the pocket more, rather than just taking off when he was filmed on SECN "Film Room". I agree staying in the pocket too much has hurt his production.

In about the 3rd Q, it looked like he took 3 steps back and immediately looked for a way to scramble. There were several times he had an open WR, but scrambled into a brick wall anyway.

[Saltydog]

screens, slants, 3 step drops or by rolling the QB outta the pocket (we don't do near enough of this).

[DovaDawg]

screens, slants, 3 step drops or by rolling the QB outta the pocket (we don't do near enough of this).

Exactly! When we started getting the ball out of Dak's hands quickly, we were able to move the ball. Then we would turn around and try to run up the middle or wait for a slow play to develop 30 yards down field. We played to the strength of their defense all night.

[Saltydog]

prototypical drop back pocket passer. Running is an integral part of his game. We need to roll him outta the pocket and let him make some plays with his feet. Us trying to keep him healthy hurt us some down the stretch, IMO.

[GTHOM]

prototypical drop back pocket passer. Running is an integral part of his game. We need to roll him outta the pocket and let him make some plays with his feet. Us trying to keep him healthy hurt us some down the stretch, IMO.

COACHING

[FlabLoser]

Dak says in a post game interview that some blame goes to him for getting out of the pocket too early. I say he was intimidated by the speed of OM'd defense. HE15MAN is still HUMAN.

[HoopsDawg]

Mullen thinks balance is having a 50/50 run-pass ratio. I think balance is when the other team takes away the run, you have the ability to go to the pass and vice-versa. We should have come out throwing the ball and gone to the run later. Bear and Ross were making plays. And OM was committed to stopping Dak and J-Rob. The Dak up the middle play was clearly not going to work but said fck it and ran it 15 times anyway.

[GTHOM]

Mullen thinks balance is having a 50/50 run-pass ratio. I think balance is when the other team takes away the run, you have the ability to go to the pass and vice-versa. We should have come out throwing the ball and gone to the run later. Bear and Ross were making plays. And OM was committed to stopping Dak and J-Rob. The Dak up the middle play was clearly not going to work but said fck it and ran it 15 times anyway.

When we did try Bear and Ross deep it worked. In the least it would have backed their safeties off. but hell no our innovator of the spread offense thought it was smarter to handicap our QB