Third Year's The Charm: Mike Leach's Bulldogs Will Be a Force to Be Reckoned With in Year 3

Things are clicking quickly at Mississippi State and 2022 could be the year the Air Raid takes off in a big way in Starkville.

Mississippi State doesn't seem like a team to watch if you're looking at overall records at the end of the season, but that doesn't tell the story of all that the Bulldogs accomplished in 2021. 

Looking ahead to the 2022 college football season, there is a lot of reason to believe the Bulldogs could be a sneaky good team despite not receiving a wealth of national attention.

That's never mattered though, just as the Bulldogs showed when they beat several Top 25 teams this season in games they entered as underdogs, heavily counted out before they ever took the field.

The Mike Leach Effect

Mike Leach has had success everywhere he's been -- it doesn't matter what the size of the program is or how much (or how little) success it's had in the past before him. Washington State was a prime example of this, as Leach guided the Cougars to their first bowl-eligible season in a decade back in 2013, when the team went 6-7 after going 3-9 the previous season. Washington State saw six bowl appearances and a national ranking with Leach as the head coach after it had seen neither in the eight seasons before him.

Mississippi State looked like a team very much in a state of transition in the first year under Leach with players who didn't seem to be fully bought in or didn't fit the system who needed to be replaced and it didn't help that the team essentially learned the new system over Zoom ahead of the season during the peak of COVID. The Bulldogs finished the season at 4-7, showing some positive signs at the end of the season.

After finishing the 2021 season with three more wins, including victories over some teams who were among the most heralded in college football at the time the Bulldogs beat them, it's clear what Leach is doing is working in Starkville at a very fast rate. This isn't necessarily surprising though -- no one becomes a two-time national coach of the year without reason.

Will Rogers' Improvement

Rogers was a quarterback who had a lot of question marks surrounding him ahead of the season after he took over in place of graduate transfer KJ Costello in the middle of 2020 and he didn't exactly get off to a strong start this season. But as Leach will say, we sometimes talk about Rogers like he's a veteran when he was only a sophomore this year -- and he grew leaps and bounds as the season progressed. At the beginning of the season, Rogers had an issue with holding the ball too long and struggled at times with accuracy, looking like a game manager at best. But he really hit his stride down the stretch and consistently got better, playing one of the best games of his career against Kentucky when the Bulldogs took down a ranked Wildcats team, 31-17 as Rogers completed 92.3% of his passes to break the record for highest completion percentage in a single SEC game with a minimum of 30 passing attempts. Rogers broke multiple records in the Mississippi State books and beyond as he completed 73.9% of his passes for 4,739 yards with 36 touchdowns and nine interceptions, finishing the season as one of the top-10 passers in the nation by the numbers. 

Outside of what's on paper and looking at the game film, Rogers' ball placement has also improved and he's shown more of what he can do on deeper passes downfield. There is still work to be done -- just as there is with any young and developing quarterback -- but there's no doubt he helps elevate this team and plays a large role in them being legitimate contenders in a conference as tough as the SEC.

Small Margins

Mississippi State lost all but two of its regular-season games (Alabama and Ole Miss) by three points or less. Some of that had to do with poor officiating, while the rest of it came down to allowing one too many explosive plays. Still, this serves as an indicator as to just how close the Bulldogs are to being a team that can win 10 or 11 games in a season. If the team made this many strides between Year 1 and Year 2 of the Leach area, COVID year and added adversity abundant, there's plenty of reason to be excited about what this team can accomplish in its third year under Leach.

Numerous Returners

Mississippi State has been one of the youngest teams in college football for the past two years, which makes what it has accomplished more impressive given the overall lack of inexperience compared to other teams. While the Bulldogs lose some strong pieces like offensive lineman Charles Cross, cornerback Martin Emerson Jr. and Makai Polk, they're also returning several players who have now been with the team and in the system for a good amount of time like all-purpose running backs Jo'quavious Marks and Dillon Johnson, wide receivers Malik Heath, Jaden Walley and Austin Williams, safety Jalen Green, linebacker Jett Johnson and cornerback Emmanuel Forbes, among a number of others.


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