Built To Battle
September 21, 2023 | Football, Joel Coleman
State faces South Carolina with opportunity to put resilience on full display.
STARKVILLE – Shane Beamer knows all about the culture of Mississippi State football.
The head coach of MSU's Saturday night opponent, South Carolina, got his full-time career started in Starkville as an assistant back in 2004 and spent three seasons with the Bulldogs.
That all may have been nearly two decades ago, but Beamer is still keenly aware of the Mississippi State makeup. It's why, despite the Dawgs' tough game against No. 12 LSU a few days ago, Beamer has tried to give his Gamecocks a heads up that State won't come limping into Columbia. The Dawgs will be driven to bite back.
"We know they'll respond [after last week]," Beamer said. "That's the DNA of the program in Starkville."
Indeed, Saturday gives Mississippi State a chance to put its resilience on full display. One bad game against one of the country's most talented teams doesn't define a season, and the Bulldogs are committed in the quest to make last week a blip on the radar screen of the 2023 campaign.
The recipe for recovery isn't a complicated one. Put simply, over the last few days, the Bulldogs have been committed to getting better across the board.
Coaches have done some soul-searching and evaluating of the previous three games.
"Who are we and what are we at our best?" MSU head coach Zach Arnett said of the thinking process. "Let's focus on those things."
"It's playing to our strengths…Whether that's playing certain styles of defense, being more aggressive or more conservative on offense, [or determining] the schemes you major in and other things you put on the back burner because they're just not getting a great return on investment."
Players have vocalized their desire to right the ship.
"We had a players-only meeting on Monday," quarterback Will Rogers shared. "We had some leaders talk. It's a new week. We learn what we did and what we didn't do last Saturday. It's really key to have senior leadership – guys that will speak up in front of the team and just tell guys, '[What happened last week], that's not acceptable. We have to get it corrected this week.'"
Of course, the Gamecocks will stand in the way of the Bulldogs getting back on track. Led by quarterback Spencer Rattler – a young man that enters play this week ranking second in the Southeastern Conference and sixth in the country in passing yards per game – South Carolina is quite the test.
"We know we're facing a talented team," Arnett said. "They've lost to two really good football teams and those have been competitive games."
Yet for as threatening as the Gamecocks are, the Bulldogs are more worried about handling their own business – something virtually all have admitted to not doing as good a job of against LSU.
But this is a new week and a new chance for MSU to prove what it's made of. For years, Mississippi State has hung its hat on toughness and resiliency. Saturday is a prime opportunity for the Dawgs to show it again.
"Just relax and play your role," Rogers said of what he and his teammates should be focused on. "It's going to be loud. The fans are pretty wild there from what I've heard. It's a cool atmosphere – a night game. At the end of the day though, it's just football. We have to execute our game plan. We didn't do that [against LSU] and it cost us. So, we have to lock in and focus. Just do your job one play at a time."
