Dawgs Show Ability To Dig Deep
September 05, 2021 | Football, Joel Coleman
MSU’s comeback over Louisiana Tech exemplifies effort in the tough moments.
STARKVILLE – Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach sat down with the Voice of the Bulldogs Neil Price last Thursday night for the first episode of this season's "Dawg Talk" radio show. Leach didn't exactly look like a fortune teller as he sported his cap, T-shirt, cargo shorts and flip flops. But hey, who said you had to have a crystal ball to foretell the future?
Thursday's program had barely started when Leach began praising the effort his Bulldogs had shown over the previous month of preseason camp. Throughout the month of August, MSU hadn't been perfect on the practice fields, but they had shown a knack for going all out, basically all the time.
"I can think of a bad effort period or a bad effort play, but I can't think of a bad effort day," Leach told Price.
Only about 48 hours after Leach made that comment, his Mississippi State squad was walking out of Davis Wade Stadium having just pulled off the largest comeback in school history. By now you know MSU topped Louisiana Tech 35-34 on Saturday. State rallied from a 34-14 deficit over the final 13:11 with 21 unanswered fourth quarter points.
The recipe for the rally was a total team turnaround as MSU's offense, defense and special teams all clicked when it counted to pull off the unforgettable win for the maroon and white. The mixing bowl for those ingredients was the effort Leach had just praised two days prior, and while it's certainly early, that never-give-in fight might just turn out to be the identity of these 2021 Bulldogs.
Before going any further, let's not dodge the elephant in the room. The second and third quarters on Saturday didn't go at all like MSU had drawn things up pregame. Leach himself admitted as much.
"We got up on them two touchdowns and we thought, man, this is going to be easy," Leach said in his postgame comments. "We had some guys out there that took their feet off the throttle and thought we would start some victory lap. Can you imagine doing that against Louisiana Tech, a team that dumps players into the NFL every year and has upset team after team? They are one of the most brutal teams on Earth to play. Nevertheless, we did that. After we took our foot off the throttle, I think we panicked. It was team wide. I don't think it was a specific side of the ball. As we panicked, we tried to make too much happen. Things then just blew up in our faces."
No team is immune to adversity and Mississippi State sure was in the midst of hard times by the time the fourth quarter rolled around. There's no shame in getting knocked down though, just so long as you pick yourself back up. That's precisely what MSU did all over the field.
Special teams shined with Lideatrick Griffin's momentum-changing 70-yard kickoff return and Brandon Ruiz's three critical late extra points. The defense turned into a three-and-out machine and kept getting the football back in the hands of the State offense.
And oh yes, that MSU offense had quite the fourth quarter revival. The engine of it all was a turnaround in the trenches.
"The offensive line got pushed around early," Leach said. "They were stealing our lunch money. Once we figured out that we were hungry, we decided that we wanted to play."
With the big boys up front playing with a renewed fire in their bellies, the rest of the Bulldog offense followed suit. The proof is in the numbers.
State put up a whopping 150 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter and averaged 10 yards per play. Nearly a third of MSU's first downs for the day came in the final period. In fact, in the entirety of the fourth quarter comeback, State's offense never even had to run a third-down play as they consistently moved the chains or scored on either first or second down.
The Bulldogs were on the move offensively. They were stingy defensively. They simply refused to give in.
Just like their head coach alluded to back on "Dawg Talk", an ability to keep pushing through difficulty absolutely appeared to be a trademark of this MSU team. Sure, there were moments of frustration on Saturday, but when the final horn sounded, that Mississippi State Bulldog grit was shining through.
"The ending was good which illustrates just how good you can be if you play together on all sides of the ball," Leach said. "If we only get a half of that, we're a better team. If we get four quarters of that, we're a great team."
So come next Saturday, Leach and his guys will lock in with the goal of putting a full 60 minutes together against another tough non-conference foe, NC State. The work has already started.
And if there's one thing you can count on, it's that Mississippi State will keep putting in the effort the team is starting to become known for. Leach, the staff and the players continue to prove they won't settle for anything less.
"We just have to keep pushing," Leach said.
