Five Thoughts on Mississippi State Football After Saturday's Scrimmage
There are just under three weeks to go until Mississippi State opens the 2021 college football season against LA Tech on Sept. 4 in Davis Wade Stadium.
To this point, we've got a pretty good glimpse of how the team has improved and where they must get better since the Bulldogs began fall camp on Aug. 6.
The Bulldogs scrimmaged in DWS on Saturday, unsurprisingly showing some good and some bad on both sides of the ball.
"I thought it was productive. I thought it was aggressive," Bulldogs head coach Mike Leach said. "I thought it was competitive the whole time. Both sides have plenty to be pissed about, so that typically means you had a pretty good scrimmage."
Here's a look at five takeaways after what served as a "checkpoint" of sorts this weekend:
1. Will Rogers seems to be the likely starter at QB, but Chance Lovertich has made an admirable push.
Leach has yet to name a starting quarterback and says the battle for the gig is open. The Bulldogs coach has indicated that sophomore Will Rogers and South Alabama transfer Chance Lovertich are the frontrunners.
Even though the final decision hasn't been announced, we're not terribly far off from reaching the time where reps will be divided differently, and it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Rogers isn't the starter.
Though, if you're only looking at the stats sheet, it appears to be a pretty close competition.
On Friday, Rogers was 9-of-12 with one touchdown, while Lovertich was 12-of-13 with a touchdown. On another day of fall camp, Rogers was 10-of-11 while Lovertich was 10-of-14.
On Saturday, Rogers completed 11-of-20 passes for 79 yards and one touchdown to wide receiver Jaden Walley. Lovertich was good for 19-of-30 passes for 152 yards and one touchdown to wideout Austin Williams.
Leach shared his thoughts on Rogers, who was up and down but continued to show some positive signs, after the scrimmage.
"I thought several times really good, then we had some dropped balls or sacks that cost the whole unit," Leach said. "Collectively, I thought he did pretty good. There’s definitely a play or two he wants back. He took care of the ball. I'd like him to find his way out of some of those sacks his own self not just the O-line. Obviously, the protection was suspect there. I think some of these guys gotta get tougher. Some think they’re better than they are. We gotta get that out of them."
Considering how well Rogers performed in 2020 after taking the reins from graduate transfer KJ Costello, it's reasonable to expect him to continue to build upon that moving forward. But for Lovertich to have stepped up and found his way to the top of the competition after hardly being talked about before the fall is respectable.
2. Outside of just Lovertich and Rogers, there's reason for optimism at quarterback moving forward.
One of the Bulldogs' most recent additions to the roster is true freshman quarterback Sawyer Robertson out of Coronado High School in Lubbock, Texas.
Leach seemed happy with what he saw out of Robertson, who completed 6-of-8 pass attempts for 52 yards with a 24-yard touchdown pass to receiver Teddy Knox on Saturday.
He said he feels Robertson has come "pretty far" in a short amount of time, though he'd like to see him further, particularly in terms of mental processing.
"I thought he looked good for the very first time ever in a team setting," Leach said. "I thought it was really good. Besides the fact that he has a pretty good arm, he’s good enough with his feet to stay out of trouble, prevented some sacks."
Robertson is no stranger to the Air Raid, playing in the system in high school. His familiarity and degree of comfort in the scheme are apparent already, and help him in his transition.
Over three seasons as a starter in Lubbock, Robertson completed 803-of-1,251 pass attempts, throwing for 134 touchdowns and 11,141 yards.
3. The pass rush continues to level up.
The Bulldogs defense was shaky at times on Saturday, but the pass rush was effective as the defense recorded a total of 10 "sacks" on the day.
Linebackers Nick Jarrett and Tyrus Wheat led the way with two sacks.
Jordan Davis, DeMonte Russell, Nathan Pickering, Armondous Cooley, Jett Johnson and Sherman Timbs each recorded one sack.
Getting pressure on the quarterback is something we've seen the Bulldogs continuously strengthen throughout fall camp, and it'll be something to watch as they enter the season in September.
Leach noted that the pass rush helped compensate for an overall defense that "let us off the hook" in third-down situations.
4. There's a need for improvement across the offensive line.
Success on offense begins and ends with a competent offensive line. Simply put, the unit had some significant issues Saturday.
The pass rush that MSU has displayed is something to be excited about, but having four different quarterbacks on the field sacked for a combined total of 10 times (which could have been more if we're looking at some of the situations the quarterbacks got themselves out of) definitely isn't.
“I think some of these guys have got to get tougher,” Leach said. “Some of them probably think they’re better than they are, so we’ve got to get that out of them.”
5. There's plenty of work to be done, but plenty of respect to be had for how far this team has come.
The Bulldogs were faced with a great deal of adversity in last year's COVID offseason, trying to make the transition to a new scheme on either side of the ball without the same level of in-person work that's done during a normal offseason.
While there was definitely some sloppiness last season, MSU still managed to finish with a 4-7 overall record between the regular season and the postseason, playing competitively toward the end of the season and ending off with two consecutive wins.
It's hard not to be optimistic about the new heights the Bulldogs can reach in 2021 with a full offseason intact, players who are not bought into the program having transferred and current players not having to learn new concepts over Zoom.
The positive outcomes of having the proper amount of reps have already shown up in camp as the Bulldogs prepare to enter the season with a deep receiving corps that includes standouts like Jaden Walley, promise at quarterback, one of the best secondaries in the nation, strong pass rush and versatile running backs who could be the best at their position in the nation.
