There is no reason to sugarcoat what happened Saturday. Mississippi State got beat by Alabama…. Badly.
This one stings a lot more than some. However; it does not mean the first four games suddenly mean nothing. Mississippi State looked outstanding through the opening month of the season. That deserves to be acknowledged. So where do we go from here? We pat ourselves on the back, throw that record in the trash, and lock back in.
Because we’ve got dragons to slay.
I’m not going to discredit that season start just because Alabama exposed some weaknesses. Four games of good football don’t suddenly become a mirage because you ran into a team that may very well be a national championship contender.
At the same time, there’s plenty to clean up. The injuries have piled up, and they clearly affected Mississippi State on Saturday, but they can’t become an excuse. Alabama deserves credit for what it did, and Mississippi State has to be honest about what went wrong.
There’s a lot of football left to play, and there’s a lot of meat left on this bone.
These Dawgs are still hungry.
Now let’s see how they respond.
The Alabama loss wasn’t the true test. The upcoming response to that loss will be.
Nobody genuinely expected the Bulldogs to navigate Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, and Texas without taking a loss. Alabama happened to be the first of those heavyweight matchups, and it turned into the worst possible version of that loss.
Now the Bulldogs have a bye week.
And that’s important.
Because Mississippi State doesn’t have to immediately turn around and prove anything next Saturday. It has two weeks to sit with what happened, figure out why it happened and decide what needs to change before walking into Death Valley on Oct. 17 (at 11am thank goodness).
Give Alabama Its Due
Before looking forward, Mississippi State fans should be willing to acknowledge what happened on the other sideline.
Kalen DeBoer has Alabama rolling.
And Keelon Russell looked every bit like the elite quarterback Alabama believed it was getting. Russell completed 16 of 22 passes for 285 yards and three touchdowns while adding a 17-yard rushing touchdown.
Alabama played like a team that legitimately believes it can win a national championship and Saturday was another piece of evidence for that. DeBoer deserves credit for having his team ready for its first ranked matchup of the season and for exploiting the exact problems Mississippi State had trouble solving.
That doesn’t make the loss feel any better.
But it puts it in perspective.
The Injuries Do Matter. They Just Can’t Become an Excuse.
There is another part of Saturday that shouldn’t be ignored. Mississippi State wasn’t exactly walking into the game at full strength. Several key players were battling health issues.
Fluff Bothwell entered the afternoon dealing with a lower-body injury and ultimately carried the ball once for one yard.
Kamario Taylor was also dealing with an ankle issue and wasn’t able to use his legs the way he normally would (I have also seen it rumored that he had the flu and turf toe). This allowed Bama to keep him penned down up, which proved crucial for them!
Taylor finished 19-of-34 for 258 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions, was sacked five times and finished with minus-26 rushing yards.
Those circumstances help explain why Mississippi State looked different from the team that had just beaten Missouri.
But they don’t excuse what happened, nor do we want them to. We State fans like the taste of blood and are notoriously gritty.
Alabama still would have been a massive challenge at full strength. The Crimson Tide was simply better on Saturday.
The point isn’t to blame injuries.
It’s to acknowledge that they made an already difficult matchup even harder.
Alabama Exposed Some Real Problems
This is where the bye week becomes valuable.
Mississippi State cannot simply chalk this up to Alabama being Alabama.
The Bulldogs rushed for just 18 yards on 30 attempts. Alabama rushed for 179.
Mississippi State also gave the ball away FOUR times, while Alabama didn’t turn it over once. The Tide turned those four takeaways into 21 points. Four turnovers in a place like Death Valley, and it will be curtains for the dawgs.
And these facts aren’t random statistical oddities from a stat sheet.
They’re areas Mississippi State MUST address to be competitive in Red Stick.
Can the offensive line hold up against elite defensive fronts?
Can the Bulldogs establish enough of a running game to keep defenses from teeing off on Taylor?
Can the offense avoid putting the defense in terrible situations?
Can the defense find a way to slow down teams that can match Mississippi State’s speed and athleticism?
Those are legitimate questions.
But they’re not necessarily season-ending questions.
They’re bye-week questions.
And Mississippi State has two weeks to work on them.
Then Comes Death Valley
This is what makes the Alabama loss so fascinating.
If LSU were next Saturday, the Bulldogs would have very little time to process what happened.
Instead, they get a week off.
Then they go to Baton Rouge.
That game should tell us far more about Mississippi State than Saturday’s final score does.
Not because LSU is Alabama. It isn’t.
But because LSU will provide another opportunity to see whether Mississippi State learned anything from getting punched in the mouth.
If the Bulldogs go into Death Valley and look like the same team that showed up against Alabama, then Saturday’s loss becomes much more concerning.
If they come out more physical, protect Taylor, establish the run, take care of the football and play with the confidence we saw during the 4-0 start, then Alabama becomes something entirely different.
It becomes a lesson.
And that’s the opportunity in front of Mississippi State right now.
The Bulldogs are 4-1. They still have wins over Minnesota, South Carolina and Missouri. They still have a quarterback talented enough to change a game, an explosive receiving corps led by Anthony Evans III — who caught 12 passes for 166 yards and two touchdowns against Alabama — and a coaching staff that has already shown it can get this team prepared to win big games.
The season didn’t disappear Saturday.
The standard simply changed.
Mississippi State spent the first four weeks proving it could be a really good football team.
Alabama showed the Bulldogs what they still have to become. Now comes the hard part.
WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO ABOUT IT !?!?
The Alabama loss wasn’t the test. The response in two weeks will be.
ABSOLUTELY 🚫 🦀 HERE BRUDA 🦇 —DudyDawg (Top Tier Miss. State)