Mississippi State fans are extremely frustrated with their team’s poor offensive play. And they aren’t the only ones.
Sophomore running back Kylin Hill got angry when the Bulldogs punted for the fifth-straight time late in the fourth quarter against Florida. He appeared to berate head coach Joe Moorhead before some teammates pulled him away and cooled him down.
The Bulldogs have scored one touchdown in their last eight quarters of SEC play.
“This sucks, obviously, two weeks in a row,” senior quarterback Nick Fitzgerald said after Saturday’s 13-6 home loss to Florida and former coach Dan Mullen.
State settled for two field goals on those drives and took a 6-3 lead into the half. Then the game changed dramatically. Moorhead abandoned the run when Florida brought more blitzes in the second half. Hill finished the game with nine carries, and Aeris Williams only had three.
Instead of beating the blitz with quick passes to the perimeter, as Mullen did so often, Moorhead elected to draw up passing plays that took too long to develop. The result? Fitzgerald was sacked six times and only completed 42.3 percent of his passes.
But Moorhead didn’t sound as displeased as you might expect.
“I thought we did a good job of picking up some of the pressures but had a little bit of leakage there in some of the protections though,” Moorhead said. “We have to get open on some routes. When the guys are open, we have to put the ball on them.”
Mullen, meanwhile, avoided State’s destructive defensive line by getting the ball out of sophomore Feleipe Franks’ hand quickly. Franks went 22-of-31 for 219 yards – 121 more yards than Fitzgerald.
“They stretched the field horizontally and found the soft spots in the zone and worked those bubble screens,” Moorhead said.
With the first month of the football season in the books, Mississippi State is 3-2 overall with poor showings in an 0-2 start in Southeastern Conference play.
Not only have the Bulldogs been mostly kept out of the end zone, they have only generated 201 and 202 yards, respectively, in the last two weeks.
Mississippi State continues its homestand against No. 8 Auburn on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN2. The Tigers beat the Bulldogs 49-10 on the plains last year and beat Southern Miss 24-13 on Saturday.
nContact Bill Burrus at 581-7237 or bburrus@gwcommonwealth.com. Follow on Twitter:@Bill_Burrus.
