Brandon Walker Is In For A Long & Brutal Fall With Mississippi State This Year
The entire college football world will miss Mike Leach forever. None of this was supposed to happen in Starkville. Leach had the Bulldogs on solid footing as a consistent winning football team in his 3 season until he tragically passed away in December of 2022.
Twenty months later, Mississippi State is still in recovery mode. Last year, they promoted highly regarded Defensive Co-Ordinator Zach Arnett to head coach and the results were disastrous. Arnett scrapped the patented Leach Air Raid and the offense imploded. The Bulldogs finished 5-7 and did not go bowling for the first time in more than a minute.
Four year starting QB Will Rogers saw the writing on the wall and transferred to Washington. And the Bulldogs sacked Arnett to hire a coach to fix their offense in Jeff Lebby. Lebby damn sure knows how to field explosive offenses and had lots of success as a co-ordinator at Baylor, UCF, Ole Miss & Oklahoma.
While the Lebby hire could work long-term, year 1 is going to be a work in progress. The Bulldogs brought in Baylor QB Blake Chapin in the transfer portal to run the offense. And the defense lost a ton of production from last year. And oh yeah the Bulldogs have SEC road games at Texas, Georgia & the Egg Bowl at Ole Miss.
Let's take a look at the key questions facing Mississippi State…..
1) Is QB Blake Shapen good?
I actually called a couple of his games as a high school QB at Evangel (Shreveport, La) and have never been impressed. Shapen has a strong arm but is not very accurate. While he had a pretty good year in 2022 for Baylor, they fell off a cliff going 3-9 last fall. The Bulldogs would have been better off with Arkansas transfer QB KJ Jefferson but he landed at UCF with Gus Malzahn.
Mississippi State also does not have elite WRs to stretch the field vertically in Lebby's uptempo offense. This offense will be better than last year's disaster but there are still way more questions than answers.
2) Can the defense replace all of the lost production?
Mississippi State traditionally has a solid defense but they are in a bad spot this fall. Gone are their top CB, top 2 LBs & top DL to the NFL. Seven of their top eight tacklers from last season are no longer on the roster. They also are breaking in a 1st year defensive co-ordinator in Coleman Hutzler. Say what you will about Zack Arnett the head coach, but the man knew how to run a defense and Ole Miss is thrilled to have him on their defensive staff in Oxford.
3) Where are the SEC wins going to come from?
State opens with a cream puff in Eastern Kentucky. They have an interesting road trip to the desert in Tempe to face rebuilding Arizona State in week 2. This game is winnable but I am not giving them the benefit of the doubt on the road out West with all of the transition on the roster and coaching staff. They will rebound with a home win over Toledo before opening SEC play at home against Florida.
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Mississippi State better enjoy the 2-1 start because they are going to get the crap kicked out of them four weeks in a row by Florida, at Texas, at Georgia & vs. Texas A&M to fall to 2-5.
Morale is going to be low when the Arkansas Razorbacks come to Starkville and they finally find an SEC win. UMASS will be a joke but will be their final win of the season.
The Bulldogs final 3 games of the year are BRUTAL with a road trip to Tennessee, hosting Mizzou & the Egg Bowl in Oxford. They get smoked in all 3 games to finish 4-8 and no bowl in Lebby's 1st year.
Brighter days are ahead in Starkville but they ain't coming this fall……