Looking In The Mirror
October 17, 2022 | Football, Joel Coleman
Bulldogs focus on themselves ahead of trip to Alabama.
(NOTE: You can watch head coach Mike Leach's full Monday press conference by clicking the image at the top of this page.)
STARKVILLE – Everyone can see the schedule and know what's ahead.
This Saturday, No. 24 Mississippi State has a major road test on its hands when the Bulldogs travel to Tuscaloosa to face No. 6 Alabama.
It's tempting in situations like these to put the mind's eye on the coming circumstances. A strong foe awaits. A loud environment will look to rattle MSU.
All that is true. However, State head coach Mike Leach doesn't want his bunch considering any of it. Leach is adamant the Dawgs shouldn't be looking down Highway 82 at the Crimson Tide. Instead, they need to be looking square in the mirror.
"If they're sitting there looking [at the opponent] and paying attention to that, they're looking at the wrong thing," Leach said at his weekly press conference on Monday. "They need to be looking at themselves and how well they're playing and competing with themselves and play the best that they can play."
Manage your own business. Sweep your own front porch.
If the Bulldogs can do that leading into Saturday's game, they can find a path to success. And how do they know that? Well, the reflection in that figurative mirror should reveal it.
It's unfortunate how the mind works sometimes. It can get tricked into believing the most recent thing and forget all that came prior. Yet nothing can erase what'd been a month and a half of impressive football prior to last weekend.
When these Bulldogs glare at themselves, they'll find they're still the team that outscored the opposition 231-126 over the front half of this year's schedule to win five of six. They're the same explosive, tenacious, dominating bunch that notched a pair of victories over Top 25 foes.
The Dawgs have shown themselves that when they handle their own affairs to the best of their ability, they're as dangerous as any team in the country.
The reality is, in Southeastern Conference football, sometimes teams get knocked down. The key is getting back up. Let no one forget, Leach's teams have had a knack for that since he arrived in Starkville.
Whether it was closing out the 2020 season with a dominating victory over Missouri and a bowl win, bouncing back from adversity to get a huge road triumph over a ranked Texas A&M team and putting together a historic comeback over Auburn in 2021 or the most recent homestand where State's average margin of victory was 24 points, MSU has proven time and time again it is as resilient of a group as there is.
It's now time to show it again. It's time to look in the mirror and get back to work.
"They can only control the guy in their uniform," Leach said of his team. "They can't control the guy in the other uniform. They've got to focus on themselves."