Opponent Film Review: Mississippi State's Offense

When South Carolina's Football team plays Mississippi State on Saturday, they'll take on an offense that's undergone drastic changes since the end of 2022.

Taking over a football program through tragic circumstances due to the sudden passing of the late great Mike Leach, first-year head coach Zach Arnett made it clear that he wanted to change the philosophy and, subsequently, the scheme of Mississippi State's offense. He backed up this vision by hiring an offensive coordinator in Kevin Barbay, who ran a pro-style offense in 2022 at Appalachian State. What kind of tendencies will we see from this Bulldog offense?

A Diverse Run-Blocking Scheme

Every single offense has power-run and zone-run plays included in their playbook. However, Mississippi State has a broad reach in terms of the amount of zone and power-run plays they'll call. For example, against Arizona, the Bulldogs called 13 zone-run plays and 16 power-run plays, but against LSU, Mississippi State ran 10 power-run plays compared to just 2 zone-run plays.

This gives the opposing defense much more to dissect in terms of visual cues and, thus, can slow down the time it takes them to process the play. When the Bulldogs are clicking in the run game, it automatically makes it more challenging for their opponent to get off the field.

A Number's Game...

Of the 100 offensive plays run by Mississippi State over the past two weeks, 52 of those plays have been run out of an 11-personnel set, sets with one tight end and one running back in the box. With Will Rogers not being known for his scrambling ability, when the Bulldogs decide to run the football out 11 personnel sets, they either match the number of box defenders their opponent has or have a slight one-player advantage.

With South Carolina's base 4-2-5 defense, the Bulldogs will automatically have a one-player advantage in the box on run-plays every time Mississippi State runs the ball out of an 11 personnel set.

Heavy Emphasis On Play-Action

One of the staples of an offense that possesses more pro-style concepts than others is a play-action passing game typically set up by the run game. The Bulldogs are no different in this aspect, as in the 100 offensive plays they ran against Arizona and LSU over the past two weeks, Mississippi State ran play-action concepts on 21 of those plays.

The goal for a defense facing an offense that prioritizes the play-action passing game is to maintain good eye discipline at all three levels of the defense, especially the second level, and the Gamecocks will be tested in that aspect this weekend.

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